Comet's Birthday Party

Comet was one of the town's tie-dyed ladies, and was turning sixty.
Word got out that she was having a party at her house on the Bolinas Mesa.
My freeloading head was filled with visions of snacks, weed and booze, when word reached me. I arrived to find the party in full swing at around 8 pm - many of the celebrants having been at it since early afternoon.

There, I found my friend George Marzocchi, (jazz-sax man and French horn player extrordinaire), Zane (a young guy that lived in his camper truck on the Mesa), The Fondue Brothers, and about forty other assorted locals.

There was a very large vat of a potent orange colored 'Punch' (aptly named) which had been spiked with acid, and everyone but me had been dipping into it with total abandon (acid was off the menu for me, following a few bad trips).

As folks succumbed to the influence of Marin homegrown, LSD, and high test booze, the volume level of the party escalated. People took up various exotic instruments - the beer bottle flute, the boot-to-floorophone, the tabletop percussion array, and the armpit fartachord. More mundane instruments i.e.: guitars, & harmonicas, also found voice.

After a couple of hours of this auditory havoc, the next-door neighbor showed up at the door.

Herman was a small, bookish man, with tufts of gray hair and thick glasses - a little sensitive to rowdiness - and was clearly aggravated by the intense reveling of his sexagenarian neighbor.

He stood at the door, mildly irate and asking for a little consideration. He was given assurences, but as soon as the door was closed the volume of the party seemed to instantly go from '10' to '11'.

In about 20 minutes Herman again appeared at the door demanding an end to the cacophony.

This time he was met with jeers and taunts, as the celebrants stood up for their inalienable Bolinian right to raise hell. Herman left, steam rising from his tufted pate, and the party raged on.

As aforementioned, Bolinas has no police force of it's own. It's a Bohemian little town, governed only by the Board of Public Utilities Directors (B-PUD), themselves the cream of the Bohemian crop.

The nearest law enforcement authority is the Point Reyes branch of the Marin County Sheriff, whose officers wanted as little to do with Bolinas as possible. Their hope was that this den of counter-cultural nutcakes might self-destruct in the absence of any authority - the Darwin Effect. This was hardly the case as Bolinas flourished in it's near anarchy.

The call had gone out however, as Herman resorted to the most despicable measures a Bolinian could stoop to. Pt. Reyes dispatched a car to attempt to coerce the party-ers into a more civil state.

The cops showed at the door, and politely asked that the noise level be greatly reduced.

A mere two Sheriff's officers against a crowd of inebriated Bolinians was a major mismatch. The respect level was less than zero, and these two hawgs were met with the same taste of derision as shown to the weasel that had summoned them.

An argument ensued at the door between George Marzachi, and the officers. The crowd packed around George, as he staunchly defended the right of all Bolinians to burn down a good Saturday night.

As he was engaged in moving Oration, Zane slipped past the officers and slunk down the long walkway which was flanked on each side by a six foot redwood fence, out to the muddy road.

There, he found the Sheriff's officer's green and gold car idling away in the damp evening air, radio crackling , inviting him... irresistibly beckoning...

Reaching into the car, he removed the mic from it's clip. Depressing the talk button, he began repeating in his best Joe Friday deadpan, "One Adam Twelve, one Adam twelve...".

Meanwhile, the discussion between George and the cops was heating up and arrest was being threatened.

Hearing Zane's refrain on the radio, the dispatcher in Point Reyes became highly alarmed. Unable to raise a coherent response, several cars of backup were urgently sent.

George had spat some epithet that crossed the line, and the cuffs were employed. The officer's grabbed George and pulled him out the door, shoved him against the fence abutting the walkway, and began the Miranda incantation.
As they turned to hustle him out to the car, infuriated revelers poured out into the narrow walkway behind them.

At this point, the cops saw Zane, with microphone in hand, standing at the driver's door of their car.
"HEY!!!" they hollered in unison.

Zane to dropped the mic and start jogging down the muddy dirt road, into the darkness of the well-timbered Bolinas Mesa.

One of the officers took out after him, leaving the other to handle George and the crowd. These guys weren't big city cops for good reason. The crowd closed upon the cop and began tugging at George, determined to rescue him from the clutches of the Evil Empire.

The cop called out to his partner, who broke off the chase and rushed back to assist.

By this time the crowd had gotten the upper hand in the struggle and George was wrested from the grip of the law. The cop who'd chased Zane saw the melee in progress and panicked, pulling his gun against the superior numbers of the crowd.
This only served to inflame the revelers, most of who's reasoning was severely bent now by the euphoria of acid, booze and weed. Not so much though, as to not realize that the gun was a bluff. The cop was in a no win position and couldn't pull the trigger, period.

As the crowd taunted the two shaken young officers, several more cars arrived on the scene. The crowd spilled out onto the road and began hurling objects at the new arrivals.

A donnybrook ensued, with eight cops wrestling thirty stoners in the mud of Alder Road. The scene was chaos - lights flashing, people hollering and floundering in the muck, and in the middle of the whole throbbing mass stood Comet, gray haired flower child in her flowing dress, peaking on at least 1000 micro grams of LSD.

"Stop this!!! I love you!!!" she plead with the grunting, mud-smeared combatants.
"I love you!!! Make love to me" she cried, and with a hand on each side of the bodice of her long, tie-dyed dress, she ripped it away and it fell to the ground. She was naked as newborn. She'd obviously had a radical mastectomy, and revealed one very stretch marked, droopy breast.

The image was sort of stunning, and the crowd of mud wrestlers fell into an awkward silence. No one quite knew what to do.

"Ma'am, please put your clothes on" said one of the Sheriff's officers, dryly.

Though extremely stoned, I none the less knew better that to wrestle with cops.
I 'd stood amongst the amused spectators, but as the cuffs came out and people subjected to arrest, I took it as my cue to discreetly exit out the rear of the house.

I was later called as a witness at George's trial. The courthouse was at 'Big Pink' (Marin County Civic Center - scene of the Angela Davis trials), In San Rafael. After sitting in a room for three days and never being called to testify, I was dismissed along with the case.

I was paid $25 a day for my time, and considered it the easiest seventy five bucks I'd made in my young life. Beer money, on the County!

Red Haired Susan

The name says it all. You could see her coming from over the horizon - and woe betide you if she was coming from behind the wheel. Susan was the incarnation of Janice Joplin - but without the voice to sing her tortured soul. She was a trust-fund baby, with enough money to buy her boyfriend a bronze Porsche, and then replace it twice after he wrapped it - and then another - around trees off the shoulder of Highway 1. Three cars in two months. She ran out of affection for the boyfriend long before she ran out of funds.

Billie Holiday sang, : "when you've got money, you've got lots of friends - crowded 'round your door...God bless the child, that's got his own..." Susan and her entourage held court in her expansive living room, in her lodge style house on the Bolinas Mesa. The booze was an ever flowing fount. Cocaine and other powders were like a snowy blanket, laying piled up in drifts on tables around the house. The party never ended at Susan's house - even as she would fall into her room, bleary eyed, and beyond control of her physical and mental abilities. Often, as she lay semiconscious in her room, utterly wasted, & near overdose, revelers from the other room would slither in to relieve her of the cash which was stuffed in uncounted wads in her purse & pockets.

Susan's breakfast consisted of fresh squeezed orange juice, mixed with a pint of 151 proof rum. She was always proud of how healthful the fresh squeezed orange juice was, as if to note that she had some little corner of will for self care left.

Susan died, predictably, in her bed. Her autopsy revealed that she had ruined nearly every major organ - stomach, liver, pancreas, kidneys, heart & lungs - with the uncontrolled flow of smokes, fluids, powders and pills into her addiction riddled body.

Susan was a lost child, trying to live without love. She tried vainly to buy it from a circle of self obsessed friends, too enamored of her wealth & willingness to see (or care) that they were exploiting a dying woman.

Susan was twenty eight, when she passed away.

My own attempted provincialism

It was a sunny, lazy Bolinas day, with only a couple of cars parked on Wharf Road. The scratching activities of a couple of dogs provided the bulk of the action.

Next to the bar there was a sidewalk leading up the hill alongside the building, back toward the long buildings which constituted the Bolinas Hotel, on the wooded hillside behind Smiley's. The gravel parking area for the bar and hotel was adjacent to this walkway, with the bar situated to the east of the lot, and the hotel to the north. Separating the parking lot from Wharf Road was a concrete retaining wall, just the right height for sitting on, shaded by a scraggly cedar tree.

Much of the important social spin of the town happened under this tree. Here was the site of many breakups, and reconciliations; the site where surfers recounted the day's tales of glory, weary locals unwound after a day's work, the latest jokes were told, and locals played the dozens - all of which happened to the ever-present accompaniment of canned Budweiser. This place was simply called, 'The Wall'.

Here, I was planted this day, whiling away the long hours with my illicit can of Coors (iconoclast that I was) in hand. On such absolutely dead quiet days as this, the boredom could be both exquisite and excruciating. Any event, no matter how mundane attracted interest.

On such days any car not recognized as indigenous attracted negative attention. Local kids would spit out the worst of all possible slurs at any hapless outsider who chanced into town; "TOURIST!!!"

Regardless of it's actual velocity, any such car was always judged to be traveling at an inappropriate rate of speed. If slow, then the car's occupants were judged to be gawkers, intruding on the inalienable Bolinian rights to peace and privacy. Faster drivers were reckless speeders whose vehicular assault upon sleeping dogs and playing children (not to mention hapless drunks) was met with the battle cry: "SLOW DOWN, TOURIST!" by incensed citizens.

As I took refuge from the baking California sun, sitting on The Wall, I heard the approach of a vehicle. The distinctive 'vrooom!' of it's engine and the weighty crunch of it's tires forecast that it was a truck, even before it rolled into view. Shortly, sure enough, a 60's vintage large red pickup came blasting down Wharf Road, at a shockingly high rate of speed.

By now I considered myself to be a local, having been around long enough to have acquired a nickname and a job (Scowley's resident slave). Thus it was with this sense of civic pride that I blurted out the obligatory, "SLOW DOWN, YA FUCKIN' TOURIST!" as the truck careened around the bend in the road just a few yards beyond Smiley's.

Smug in the sense that I was among the elite who could lay just claim to the righteous judgment of the wretched tourist intruder - a keeper of the flame of Bolinian autonomy, I settled back against the trunk of the cedar tree and took a long, slow, self satisfied swig of my well deserved brew.

...Life is sweet when you have a home - a place of belonging, where values are uncluttered - where right is right, and principals worth standing up for... These people who think they can just move in on anybody else's homes and behave anyway they want have to know that there are people who will stand up for what's right and fair! This is Bolinas, by gawd, not the back streets of some urban slum where pea-brained jerks with a stick shift and too much horsepower can burn rubber anytime they feel like....

My thoughts were shattered by the rude sound of tires sliding on loose gravel.

The big, red truck loomed before me now, having apparently turned around at the end of Wharf Road and headed back the other direction, stopping abruptly in front of Smiley's. The door opened with an angry creak, and then thudded closed with strong punctuation. Moving with swift authority , a rather large, fifty-ish man in a military looking hat and with blood in his eyes strode from around the truck. Approaching to a point so close that I could have counted the gray hairs in his short, pencil thin mustache, he pointed a stubby index finger directly into my startled face.

"Listen you little piss-ant" he began in a tone faintly reminiscent of an earlier conversation with a person wearing a similar hat, "whoever the hell you think you are to tell ME to slow down, you oughta' be awful gawddamned sure of just who your'e talkin' to ya little jerk! I been Fire Chief in this town longer then you've been outa diapers, an' if I want to drive a hunnerd n' ten gawddamned miles an hour, I'll gawddamned well do it , ya little JERK!" he wheeled and returned to his driver's seat so rapidly that I could have sworn I felt a back-wind, and with another emphatic spin of his tires, his truck sped off.

I decided that maybe in this instance, I should resist the impulse to yell after him.......

.................................."SLOW DOOOWN!!"

David Sorrels

David Sorrels was a scrawny, long haired, denim clad, guitar picking clown.

David's mother, Rosalie Sorrels, is a songwriter's songwriter, from the tradition of Rambling Jack Elliot, Woody Guthrie and Utah Phillips.

Their kitchen became my second home - a place where one could drink Rosalie's homemade sangria, & be a fly on the wall, entertained by the likes of Jerry Jeff Walker, and Arlo Guthrie as they joined the ongoing parade of visitors through that home.

David & I had a penchant for sharing - whether it was George Dickle #8 whiskey, a new tune, or even each others' girlfriends (not simultaneously...) . David & I shared riotous times as we made weekly runs in his old Dodge split rimmed stake truck (Hezekiah) to the Russian River & Mendocino county. There we would cut firewood, felling dense overgrowths of oak, eucalyptus, & fir. We fancied ourselves as lumberjacks & drunkards - in all the best traditions of those two closely related avocations. Usually far too hung over to safely handle chainsaws & splitting malls, we would none-the-less tackle our work with mirth & prankishness, hauling back several cords of wood for sale, which would usually go to fund the next week's drinking.

David had a pensive & moody side - which was entirely unspoken. He was closed mouthed about his troubles, even among his closest friends. One night, while I was away during a year spent working in Santa Cruz, He went to another friend's house & borrowed a roll of electrical tape and a hose.

It was my late friend, Doly, who found him pulled off in his truck into a thick patch of brush alongside Mesa Road, the following day. He had gone to this spot, & quietly finished his quart of George Dickle, as he taped the borrowed hose to his exhaust pipe & then gassed himself at the wheel of Hezakiah. His death tormented me for many years, as I never had the chance to mend a very minor broken fence that had stood between us at the time. David was 23.

On a briny shore...

Tide pool

First replenished by

thrash of big water

hammering jagged reef

receding for a while

pulling away in service to the moon

revealing the serene

Here water lays in pockets and folds

Rocky lap of seashore

Aquaria naturalis

comes to simmer in the afternoon

then cools in the shadows

of fortress cliffs

Where steeps the life-broth

starfish gropes under purple stone

anemone spreads green tendrils

When shadows fall upon the pool

Little fishes dart

blinding fast into kelp leaf

stranded maiden’s hair

Where chiton grips the mossy rock

and hermit crabs climb on shards of lace

in periwinkle cones

and density of life is deepest deep

in a shallow pool

on a broken shore

in the waning light

of a salten day

Steve

Provincialism

Shortly after my arrival in town it became apparent that my presence was found by very many people to be less than desirable. Being a shame-based person, I was all too ready to personalize this as being essentially a reaction to the unlovable, dislike-able person whom I then believed that I was (In my advancing age, I've learned to embrace my unlovable, dislike-able self, and even flaunt it...). I was to learn, in time, that this was the general reaction to all outsiders, and that the levels of this resentment were only slightly contingent upon one's place on the social escalator.

'Locals' were those who's families had lived in town long enough to have preceded the counter cultural influx of the late sixties, and generally were property owners and had either a business or agricultural stake in the town. Many of these people strongly resented the "hippy element", and were largely pro-development. Business and residential development were seen as economic opportunity - the natural way of progress, and among the rights and blessings of the American way of life.

Thus their provincialism was expressed as general hostility toward the hippy element, many of whom were attracted to Bolinas in the late sixties as they fled from the urban world in search of 'alternative lifestyles'. This term, which today is a buzz phrase for anything from gay culture, to Boulder Colorado's granola-think, to the enclaves of neo-nazis in their Idaho retreats, was a little clearer allusion to a detour from the mainstream culture's 'get a job / get a family / get ahead / get a watch / die' limited options.

While the entrenched generations of natives were hoping for the routing of the more recently arrived young, these more recent arrivals were quite fixed on the notion of keeping out even newer arrivals. Everyone, it seemed, had an ax to grind with someone, and each had their own rendition of what paradise meant, and who the spoilers were.

"Tourist" was a slur to most of the newer generation, a name which called up the objectionable images of cars jamming Wharf, Brighton and Terrace roads on hot summer days - horns blaring rudely at dogs who were too accustomed to sleeping in the streets, and greasy, leering men with binoculars who stood along the overlooks, drooling at the sight of nude sunbathers as if at a Tenderloin peep show.

Plans proposed by the county to widen Highway 1 to improve access to West Marin County were seen as a declaration of war by most in Bolinas, and were met with outcry and demonstrations of vehement protest. A contingent of local guerrillas (now known as the Bolinas Border Patrol) carried on a low level sabotage operation in this war on tourists, steadfastly cutting down each sign the Highway Department erected pointing the way into town from the main highway.

The county would put up signs on 4x4 posts by day, only to have them hacked off at the knees by night - the chainsawed remains left in shards, like body parts at a grizzly murder scene. The county would erect signs mounted on steel posts by day only to have them hacksawed down by night, or even more dramatically dragged from their concrete footings by truck and chain. The battle grinds on even today, each firing it's volleys every so many weeks. Sign up....sign gone.

Interestingly, while the size of the population has fluctuated little (owing in large part to ongoing water and building moratoriums) a significant percentage of the populace turns over on a steady basis, with one leaving and another taking his or her place without missing a stride. Those leaving were often highly vocal in the anti-newcomer fray, but after the setting in of the reality of a life spent hassling with high rents and the logistical problems related to living in relative isolation from the mainstream world, they would finally throw in the towel and move to places closer to jobs, families, and accommodations.

Bolinas proves to be a siren for many - alluring and seductive, but soon reveled to be a tyrannical mistress who takes her lovers hostage. Boredom runs high during the long, gray rainy season, and the small world of a small town becomes a glass house where all are privy to the most intimate details of each others' lives. Often, those who rode in on a tide of high ideals and communal zeal rode out on a backwash of disillusionment and resentment as the reality of Bolinas fell short of her promise. So, in rides the next wave, who fall spellbound into the whirl of Bo-culture, and soon are quite busy with the task of keeping out the next wave of newcomers which threatens this little Valhalla they have found... yet another turn on the circle.

Timothy's Song

Timothy Stephens was a painter...

I lived in a cabin that I built on his property in Bolinas, Ca. for most of a five year period during the mid seventies. Together we struggled through times of bad breaks, worked crappy jobs for short pay, & had some of the finest of hard times. I painted more than one picture at his urging - inspired by his example.

Tim & I would often hustle & scrimp together enough money to drive his truck down the coast to the border, at Tijuana. There we would park, & then venture into Baja, Mexico by bus for ill advised, but somehow survived adventures.

Tim was a very fine painter. He once painted a picture of his former wife from the neck to the thighs, as she was nine months pregnant. The body was a strange luminescent green, with details that at first seemed oddly convoluted. But then, on closer examination, the fetus inside was revealed, with the umbilicus, and looking deeper the heart & internal organs of mother and fetus, until, on deep concentration, one could see through to the mother's spine. Stepping back from the painting, the images again merged into the form of the mothers swollen, nude belly.

Tim was troubled by his ongoing battle with his former wife for continuing visitation rights with his two sons. During this period, in 1978, he was arrested on drug related charges. While the matter was pending, one sunny day he went into San Francisco, thirty miles to the south of us, and leapt from the Golden Gate Bridge. He was thirty Years of age, at the time of his death. I miss him to this day.

......Timothy's Song

((C) 1979, Steven M Nelson)

Brush that caresses the canvas

Colors stream

The eye commands the hand

To show the unseen

The easel stands in a cellar

there it remains

visions of heaven & hell

Just so many stains

Timothy, your eyes could see

your vision was so clear to me

Painter in the dark

I heard the beating of your heart

Tell me why the world turns creation into chaos?

Tell me why we crucify the ones who come to save us?

Tell me why your colors

have to stand upon an easel in the dark?

Though the paining is vaunted

still the painter is haunted

his palette has gone to gray

No longer inspired

now the brush is retired

and the pigments are put away

Wipe the tears from my eyes so that I may see

the resplendence of his colors and symmetry

Paint in light now on your odyssey

Be at peace, Timothy...

The Earlybird Cafe

For Danny...

...This is the song we did everywhere we went, whenever we did our duet thing.

I had a little shack on the Bolinas Mesa, about two miles from the bar in town. Most nights I was too lit up to make the walk, so would stagger across the street to Scowley's restaurant, climb in the window of the pool room, and sleep on the pool table. Since I worked in the restaurant, I would simply wake up in the morning, & get busy. Often, Danny would be up & around, & would show up at Scowley's door while I was still mopping the floors & prepping the kitchen. He'd come in & make a pot of coffee (mud) & hang out until the cook showed up.

At that point we would usually find our way to the old upright piano in the pool room, & would spend the next hour or so singing & playing for the breakfast crowd.

The breakfast crowd often included people such as Jerry Garcia, Jesse Colin Young, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alan Watts, & assorted other famous types. It wasn't uncommon for someone to show up with a six pack & a guitar, which usually sent us into a day of jamming & foot stomping.

Both of us were really prone to looking back on those times wistfully, especially as the years went by & life became more complicated. Whenever we were together, through the years, we would sing The Earlybird with great fondness for those times.

Listening to the lyrics of the song today, it carries so much more nostalgia, & a certain eeriness. We used to introduce it by saying, "...and now, a happy song about death." The song was written by a guy named Lane Teegan, who's claim to fame was flipping burgers at The Trident, in Sausolito, as taught to us by Frank Fee....

The Earlybird Cafe Everybody's laughin' at the Earlybird Cafe I've been headed there since yesterday, I believe I've lost my way Charlotte's there in organdy, Billy's there in suede Y' know that money's in their pockets, & all their dues are paid there's wine on every table, & food on every plate well I hope I get there pretty soon, before it gets too late Someone asked me what time it was - I told him it was now he asked me just what that might mean, but time would not allow so I gave away my watch to a passing businessman I hope he understands me now - I've done the best I can But it was getting early, as I rushed away from there with that ancient earth beneath my feet and new dust in my hair So I went on down the highway to the other side of town my clothes was gettin' wrinkled, & my socks was fallin' down but I could not stop to pull them up, for fear that I'd be late so I kept on runnin' down the road until I saw the gate - of the Earlybird Cafe, glowin' golden like the sun everybody they laughin' & callin', "Come on in, we've just begun !" So I went on in, & I set right down, & I ordered me up some wine y'know the talk was fast & clever, & the women all was fine Charlotte asked me where I'd been with my jaded ivory eyes I told her I'd been hung up, with some begger in disguise She laughed like temple bells, she kissed me on the cheek & said: " It's hard to be alive sometimes....... but it's easy......... to be dead!"

(Recording of Doly & I kicking out The Earlybird on an old piano, circa 1977)

DANIEL (DOLOMITE) W. MATHIS, age 47, passed away in Melbourne, Fla., on October 6th, 1996. "Doly" was a performing songwriter noted for his strong tenor voice, and tight rhythmic keyboard stylings. His songwriting style spanned all genres, from country rock to jazz. He attended high school in the East Bay area of Contra Costa County, Ca.. His strongest musical influences were from the artists of the West Marin County area in the late 1960's & early '70's, who were his contemporaries at that time; such as Jesse Colin Young, Rosalie Sorrels, Huey Lewis, and Steve Miller. He lived in the town of Bolinas, Ca.,for several years, where he spent much of his time entertaining, surfing, fishing, & developing his unique song stylings. He toured nationally, as a single performer, and with several bands, Sharing the bill with artists such as Jim Messina, Taj Majal, Asleep at the Wheel, and John McEuen. Doly lived in the Denver area intermittently from 1977, through 1995, also residing in Juno, Alaska; Breckenridge, Co.; Idaho Springs, Co.; Ft. Meyers, Fla.; and Nashville, Tenn., during that period. Known for his imposing stature, (6'3", 360 lbs.), and colorful tattoos, Doly was also gifted with a swift and disarming wit, which won him friends from all walks of life. He suffered from numerous health problems in the recent past and suffered cardiac arrest on October 3rd. He was removed from life supports two days later, and died peacefully, surrounded by friends and relatives on the following day. He is survived by his sister, Susan Martinez, of Vallejo, Ca., and a host of friends and admirers.

I ll always hold in heart the exceptional love that we two brothers shared in our wayfaring lives together. He was my sidekick, & my partner He was my teacher, and at times I was his. He is embedded in every note that I play, & all my fondest memories. Danny's ongoing infection was clearly the result of the abuse of contaminated IV drugs. Although he died with fourteen days clean, Drug addiction ravaged him, & stole him from us all.

Song for a White Wave

Song for a White Wave

...And so the rushing tide takes me out
and mingles me with the sea
back to the womb of wombs, I dissolve
Sandpipers cry, and frantic, run the beach
I hear only saline waves
and calmly dissipate

Into that sea which is your heart
I gladly tumble on the rocks
and give to you the secrets laid bare beneath my sands
All the brine and fragrant air
vital breath of life
I drink as if a broth, and am revived

How I love the thrashing surf
and starlit glinting sand,
every tangled driftwood given to the shore,
every scalloped shell that alights upon my eye
filigreed and etched by tide and time
- your gifts of endless life abiding

Taking each enameled shell that fancy strikes
immersed into the wash that is my heart
I hold them to the lucent sun
and gaze upon the hues revealed in deep pearlescent scape
then leave them back upon the beach
that it may remain as I so love

I will wade into the warming sea
and feel you lapping at my sides
gently slip into your depths, and swim then at such leisure
I will give myself to every course and current
trusting you to set me back
tenderly upon the shore

The Monarch Grove...

Through the long, soggy winters, rain and mist and heavy fog breath life into the craggy coastal hills. There is no greener green than the color of those hills, and no deeper beauty than the sight of them. Their curves and folds so voluptuous as to give the name 'Sleeping Lady' to that part of the Tamalpias ridge which nestles the Bolinas lagoon, separating West Marin from that greater world known to locals as simply "over the hill".

Further to the south the craggy furrows reach down to meet the sea - gently at the edge of the lagoon, but forbidingly where massive cliffs buttress the shore. There the hills are deeply wooded with redwood, oak, and ferns as big as Buicks. The aromatic, loamy soil; black and red and moist, blankets the woodlands, laying like a giant ova, each falling seed a potent sperm, the earth eternally with child. A handful of this soil is a handful of life itself, a metaphor of the giant circle, as the bark and leaf and root of things past gives itself to the life of things now.

The lives of small creatures are nourished under lichened rocks and fallen trees, tiny salamanders, beetles and millipedes doing their little jobs there in the industries of nature.

Summer days are always cool in these woods, and winter days mystical and deeply serene in the thick mist. The rain whispers her secrets in the branches of the trees and brush, falling softly on the tender earth - except in those storms so hard driven as to anger even this most forgiving place.

In these storms the place to be was standing at the edge of Bolinas' sandstone cliffs, where the awesome pounding of the winter Pacific, and the mighty gales of her offshore storms gave one a clear perspective on one's exact place in the scheme of things. Only the most egomaniacal and arrogant avoid true humility here, as the forces of the raging seas and dark, violent skies hammer into one's very marrow the truth about our much vaunted significance.

Each place here possesses it's own depth of character, complex and multifaceted - The Monarch Grove, for example.

Splitting off from Brighton Road, Terrace Road begins it's ascent up to the Mesa, winding narrowly past houses planted into the hillside. Abruptly turning along the overlook just above Brighton beach, it turns in again and rises up through a dense stand of several acres of eucalyptus. Here is The Monarch Grove.

In spring, the vines of ivy and Nasturtium, emboldened by the past winter's elixir of rain and mist, compete to climb the trunks of these majestic trees, forming the thick carpet of leaves and brilliant flowers which covers the sloping terrain. It is as if the grove is decorated to welcome the annual influx of Monarch butterflies, for whom the grove is named.

Each year they arrive by the multiples of thousands, and fill the grove with a startling beauty. The bright orange, gold and black of their filigreed wings, the fiery reds and yellows of the nasturtiums clinging high up on the massive trunks of the eucalyptus - on a clear, blue spring day these sights and smells penetrate to a level deeper than bone.

Some have argued that beauty is not only a quality, but an entity, existing not purely subjectively but as a definable characteristic. Just as sound exists as vibratory energy even without ears to hear it, and light exists as radiant energy even in the absence of eyes to see it; beauty is posed too, as having an existence of it's own. If this is so, (though I won't debate it here) then The Monarch Grove would be held as evidence of it.

Amidst the blanketing vines and flowers, large clusters of ferns spring up. The sunlight cuts shafts of light through the trees, dappling the ground where they strike it with splashes of even brighter color. Hummingbirds dart about, sipping sweet, spicy mead from an endless trove of floral grails.

Walking through the grove at night posed it's own challenges for me, as by the time I was doing so I was most likely under the influence, and my eyes adjusted poorly to the remarkable darkness of the grove. It was exceptionally black owing to the dense canopy of the trees, which blocked out all but the brightest of full moon light. This left me blindly tapping at the pavement with my toes in order to stay on the curving road, until it emerged from the grove at the edge of the Mesa. Through the murk the quiet would periodically be rudely broken by the sixty foot fall of Eucalyptus nuts, about the size of acorns, which would strike the pavement with a sudden and frightening SNAP! Even more heart stopping was when on occasion one of these would drop soundlessly and bean me on the head or shoulder, inflicting a nasty welt, and for one alarming moment convincing me of my very imminent demise.

In the wind the trees groan and creak eerily, imparting the notion that I was in danger of being struck by something more serious than just an acorn, their spindly branches seeming more frail than they truly are.

The glory of the grove (by day) was tempered, however. The arrival of the Monarchs was immediately followed by a frenzy of mating, lasting for only a few orgiastic days before the butterflies would begin to fall, mortally exhausted, to the ground.

Even with my objective understanding of the natural rhythms in evidence, I couldn't escape feeling great sadness as I watched them flittering helplessly, in their death throes, having fulfilled their purpose and gone the great circle. Soon the grove would be littered with the corpses of thousands of these expired creatures, which would shortly be dispatched by the scattering wind and consuming earth. The blossoms of the surviving nasturtiums seemed for a time somehow not as bright, reminding me not so much of their own considerable beauty, but of the even greater beauty no longer playing on my eye.

Steve

The Brawl

Chris had returned from the Vietnam war physically intact but emotionally scrambled. From early in the morning he could be heard raving up and down Wharf Road, shouting threats and throwing rocks and pieces of trash .
The town was in a quandary. One of it's native sons was in trouble - another broken victim of a lamentable war (knowing all war as lamentable), and all were disturbed by his plight. But he was making life miserable. His constant, menacing presence was intimidating to virtually all who crossed his path. He drove business away from old Tony Tarantino's restaurant, the only place in town where one could get a truly early morning breakfast. People walked in large semicircles when seeing him on the street.
Drunk and disorderly described his most quiet moments, and in this town where the County Sheriffs were seen as unwelcome intruders into it's prized autonomy, there seemed little choice but to bear his presence. He served as an ever irritating reminder that no one was exempt from the ravages of that war, and that even as "hip" and "aware" a community as Bolinas suffered casualties.
Chris had flown helicopters, and all were grimly aware of the horrors he had witnessed, and even likely inflicted; and if you didn't know this fact at first, then it would not be long before Chris himself angrily proclaimed it with a sneer planted an uncomfortable two inches from your nose.
Too many fragmented bodies and bloody limbs, was the general consensus... too many streaking missiles and burning babies and search-and-destroy missions. Now at home, Chris fought on, raging and breaking windows and laying siege to his own home town. This had been the state of things since his medical discharge now two months past.
.........................................................................................................................................................
Patrick was all Irish, from his cocked cap, to his red handlebar mustache, to his green wool socks. Patrick was thirtyish, six feet plus, and athletic, with a no-bullsh*t attitude and a quick, cutting wit. As well regarded as anyone in Bolinas, Patrick was respected even by those few who didn't like him.
In keeping with the prevailing mores of the town, he was known to enjoy an occasional pint at the pub, as it were, and here he could be found on an average Saturday night, shooting pool, playing his squeeze box, playing jigs on his harmonica, and otherwise acting every bit the part of the town Mick.
Saturday night it was, and Smiley's Schooner Saloon was going full bore. The jukebox was blasting out Buck Owens' 'Rollin' In My Sweet Baby's Arms" for the fifth time this hour. The rough laughter of old Bobby Jean D'accardo penetrated the thrum of voices and clacking pool balls, like an agitated duck with a megaphone. A Saturday night good time was being had by all.
And then, like a squall coming up at sea, it suddenly turned tense, chilled by the mere appearance of Chris at Smiley's door. Like a scene from a bad western when the black-hat busts through the saloon door spoilin' for a gunfight, the collective heads of all present turned, eyes wary. Sure as if it were scripted he took center stage, glaring at every eye that would not avert, spitting obscenities like used up chew. Advancing on the pool table, he picked up the cue ball and launched it at the wall, as the startled crowd parted like Alfalfa's hair in it's path.

Patrick to this point had been sitting bleary eyed at the bar, with a fixed, grim expression, eyes directed through but not at the bar. Upon the launching of the cue ball he sprang to life as if he were air bursting in to fill a broken vacuum.
"THAT'S ABOUT ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT!! " he erupted.
As if releasing the pent up anxiety of the entire town with this outburst, the bar went up in a collective cheer.
Chris looked for a moment as if he had been caught in an ambush. Quickly regaining himself he took up the challenge with that time honored question kept at the ready in the arsenal of all self-respecting bullies everywhere.
"So what are you gonna' do about it?" came the requisite response.
As if on a predetermined queue, the pool table was instantly cleared as bets were slapped down like mouthy children. It is amazing how a peace loving, aquarian, counter cultural group of highly evolved ‘adults' such as this can quickly degenerate when a good ass kickin' is determined to be the best available remedy.
Now, normally when a fight loomed imminent in her establishment, bar owner Sue Bradley was quick to protect her licenses by immediately summoning the Sheriff's Department (the only form of law enforcement available, based in Point Reyes - thirteen winding, narrow miles to the north). However, being an astute businesswoman, Sue recognized that first; a thorn in her (and everyone else's) side stood to be potentially removed if Patrick was up to the task, and second; that here was an opportunity to keep the taps open and the libations flowing freely for the duration of the night. Thus she left the phone on the hook, instead positioning herself between the square-jawed protagonists where she informed them that the only way they were going to have it out was after hours.
Again a cheer went up, and as usual, all proceeded to get roundly drunk.
Mary, the bartender, lived in the apartment directly above the bar. This was certainly not the quietest location in town, but from out her living room window one could egress onto the overhang above the bar's front door. It was from this vantage point that I opted to view the big fight, together with a few more friends than should have been standing on this time wearied platform.
The hour had come. Two o'clock bar time (1:40 a.m. for those who are lacking in experience with this mode of time keeping). The bar emptied out onto Wharf Road, and immediately a large ring of eggers-on was formed. Somehow the crowd organized itself into rooting sections according to who had wagered on whom. The smell of blood was nigh, and all were spoiling for a good fight.

Patrick and Chris took up their positions in the center of the circle, shirts off, fists raised. The crowd was giddy except for a small few women who stood on the periphery lamenting the violence, but staying near just the same. No one was sober enough to notice that neither man was exactly steady on his feet as the two warily circled. Both men had quaffed a few too many pints, and now neither was at his fittest for the contest.
A fist slashed out, not connecting. The crowd cheered anyway. Another fist darted forth purposelessly. The crowd cheered again. Then suddenly both men fell drunkenly into a clinch, wrestling to the ground.
This was not what the crowd had in mind. Someone from one faction reached in to pull the two apart. Angrily, others from the other faction reached in to pull at the pullers. the scene quickly became a street brawl, with life-long friends wrestling brainlessly in the street.
We on the veranda watched with amazement and amusement as painters and poets wrestled with gardeners and writers in a giant display of pugilistic incompetence. After about ten minutes of this lunacy, all fell exhausted into each others sweaty arms, seeming to have gotten the absurd picture of themselves. The group began to disintegrate, small bands wandering off together into the night.
Finally, three Marin County Sheriff's cars pulled up to the scene, lights whirling intrusively, as Patrick and Chris staggered off together, arm in arm, singing an Irish ballad into the dark distance.

Dawn rose quietly that morning and for most thereafter, as Chris took up working with the water board crew, and life around town slipped back into it's lower levels of normal abnormality.
Something cleansing happened there in the middle of Wharf Road that night. Something as powerful as lithium or Prozac took hold in the the boozy, rowdy catharsis of that harmless donnybrook.
What salve could be found in the errant swings of bearded, besotted dilettante's fists?
Who can say why; but Chris seemed to settle into a quiet life after that night, never howling in the streets again.
So goes the telling of the worst brawl in Bolinas' modern times.

From 'Doly's Ashes'

Daniel 'Dolomite' Mathis passed away in October of 1996... This is excerpted from my account of the scattering of his ashes from the cliffs at Agate Beach, in 1997...

"We pulled in, parked, and climbed out of the van; and quietly started up the trail leading to the edge of the cliffs. Danny Trembley began wailing on his sax, a forlorn bluesy improvisation, as Tattooed John laid out the beat. About halfway up the trail I stopped. I crouched down in the hollow of a large juniper that grew alongside the trail, and opened the box containing Doly's ashes. I opened his songbook to a page containing a song he had written 24 years earlier about the pain of his addiction, and his hope for eventual freedom. It was a personal song that he resisted performing publicly, but which I'd asked to hear many times over the years.
I wouldn't burn an original lyric of his, but had copied the song, and I pulled this copy out, and holding it immediately above the container, I set it alight ensuring that every cinder fell into Doly's ashes. I did the same with a copy of the death certificate, symbolic to me of letting go of his death and moving on, and again with his copy of the registration to the V-Max he'd bought from his mom's estate and named "Margie Bob"after her. Atop the ashes was the soil from my mom's grave site, and reaching in, I mixed the ashes & the soil together, then took the container the rest of the way to the top of the trail.

The breeze was offshore, just as it needed to be to carry his ashes over the reef, out toward the sea. Massive high cliffs stretched endlessly in both directions. Behind us rolled the lush green earth of Marin. The sun was perched behind a small cloud, shining through it and splashing a silvery light across the ocean. The tide was incoming, and strong waves broke against the reef, splashing and spraying foam two hundred feet below.

Standing at the edge of the cliff I found myself a little uneasy. I took a step back. Danny and Tattooed John stopped playing, and the wind took up the song. I recalled the many times I'd been here before - sometimes opening a can of tuna and enticing the gulls, who'd hover in space, diving for the bits of fish I'd toss out over the edge. Watching them from every angle in their aerial displays was amazing and inspiring, and I hoped that somehow, in whatever incorporation, Doly's spirit could be as free and gracefully unfettered.

I swung the container out at the sea, releasing the ashes. The wind swept them outward and downward in a white plume - spreading out across the cliff's face, down to the waiting reef. I watched the cloud dissipate, as it quickly joined the elements. I knelt for a long time there, watching the setting sun, and watching gulls pass below us on unbended wings - sailing in formations of twos & threes on the steady, gentle wind..."

Steve

Standing in the Flames

By Danny (Dolomite) Mathis 1972

Here stands a man in the sands
of the time
When he could not find a rhyme
I can't seem to reach me no height
I'm not right
but I know I'm not to blame
- standing in the flames... losing in the game
It's hard to be a man and I really can't stand the pain

Chorus:
One step at a time
Walk straight down the line
I've got to find a way
I've been wrong - at times I admit to it
I've got to walk on through it
I've got to walk right through it

‘Cause I've come too close
To overdose
It's true I'm sad to say
And if I can't start
A change of heart
Gonna throw it all away - throw it all away....

Cookie

Cookie was, perhaps, the only ‘person’ skinnier than me in all Bolinas. She was mostly gray with a black mask, and whitish whiskers surrounding her comical face - a bit like 'Tramp' from the Disney story. She had a long, whip-like tail that wagged at the slightest provocation, and spindly legs that lifted her to a little more than knee-height. She had more fleas than I did, but not many more.

When I found her I was living in a tent tucked away in the bushes, across from the town gas station, where now sits a lumber yard.

Cookie had been living in a crawl space under a house next to Smiley’s Bar. She was nursing a litter of eleven puppies, which I shimmied under the crawl space to evacuate and then brought them all to my tent. There, Cookie and I together ate scraps from the butcher barrel at the general store, until the puppies were old enough to wean. I managed to get them all adopted out, just in time for her to go into heat again. She had ‘flea allergies’ and had chewed away the fur on her haunches - though her long whiskers and intelligent eyes managed to prevent her from being completely unattractive. As a matter of fact, she somehow seemed to know that she looked a bit pathetic. She played on the sympathies of Smiley’s patrons – frequently being fed hard boiled eggs by soft hearted folks, out the front door where she faithfully waited for me while I drank inside.

Cookie became the most devoted dog… When I began to wash dishes in Scowley's, she’d wait outside the door for me, often sneaking in when the door would be opened by customers, then creeping under the back of the counter until she could peek out from the end where she could watch me as I busted suds. Eventually she’d get spotted and eighty-six'd – though not usually for long before she’d sneak back in. Several times daily Greg or Randy Fontan would yell at me “Keep that dog outside, Backyard!” She got the leavings from plates after the breakfast rush though, and I felt good that she and I were both better fed.

Cookie had more friends than I did. Sometimes, she’d go off visiting, and I’d hear later that she’d been to Jeanne Greenberg’s place, or Bobby Jean D’Accardo’s, or any number of others she knew. At each stop she’d be fed, though she never seemed to gain an ounce.

To my disgrace, there were times I’d leave her closed in my cabin, coming home drunk to find that she’d fouled the den. On a couple occasions I dealt her beatings in my drunken stupor. For this, I have carried great shame throughout my days. I did not deserve the love this wonderful dog lavished upon me.

Cookie ‘sang’ while I played harmonica, chased sticks into the surf, and loved nothing more than endless games of fetch and keep away. She was my constant companion - laying down off the shoulder of the road as I hitched across the country, staying low until a ride would stop.
“My dog okay?” I’d ask before we jumped in… if the answer was ‘no’, I’d wave ‘em on.

Cookie seemed to understand English better than most people. I’d give her complex instructions that she’d never heard before – she’d do her best… “Go over there and sit until I come back…” I’d say.
She’d dutifully go to the exact spot I’d indicate, and do exactly as I said.

There were times my drinking did nothing to endear me to other humans. I was scruffy, aimless and sometimes a mooch. Scowleys wouldn’t always have work for me, and I wouldn’t always want to work. Sometimes I’d get drunk early in the day, and be a bother to people visiting the store or the other businesses downtown. I seemed to never have my own cigarettes, though I did have a serious habit. Even when I felt most alone and inept in the world, Cookie loved me like no other.

After her fourth litter of puppies Bobby Jean pitched in to have her sterilized. Cookie gained weight and grew all her fur in after this. I was so grateful, though I may have never adequately expressed it.

We lived for five years under the West Marin summer sun, and through the chilled, misty winters. We were a fixture, Cookie & I. I painted my famous mural on the bathroom wall in Scowleys, learned a few tricks and skills, played piano and wrote songs. Backyard Steve started to find a life, and Cookie was well-loved and happy.

One day a transient called 'Crazy Patrick' drifted in. He was last seen on Bolinas-Olema Road with Cookie on a rope, hitching out of town. I searched for her endlessly – getting up at 4 am to clean Scowleys so that I could get an early start. I’d visit every shelter and dog pound from Sonoma to San Francisco, day after day. I was gut-shot grief stricken. I’d lost my closest friend.

One day, George Marzacchi found me, and told me that he’d encountered Cookie while driving cab in Mill Valley. He put her in his cab and drove her around throughout the day. At the end of the day, he transferred her into his VW convertible, and stopped at the store to buy her food. Panicked, she clawed her way out of his car while he was in the store, and ran off again.

For four months I searched Mill Valley, every day. Cookie was never seen again. I was inconsolable, and felt a void that never really healed. Damned dog... I miss that pup with an aching heart to this day. She was one for a lifetime.

I left Bolinas after a few years, determined to find my potential. I went to work helping developmentally disabled people in a group home, and quickly found my aptitude for that field. I went on to work at an administrative level, building agencies and programs, and 30 years later still work in a helping capacity. I also played a great deal of music along the way, formed a sound and production company, and became a certified Diver. I began going to Southern Mexico, where I became concerned for the plight of the street dogs there, and formed a successful nonprofit to help them. This remains among my greatest passions, and my life's work.

One is a skinny waif named Poco.

When Poco came to me, she was 12 weeks old. She’d never been socialized. She’d been scooped up by a member of our team at the last second, as she was being chased through a field in a small pueblo by a man with a shotgun.

She was terrified of humans, having spent her first weeks of life being chased, stomped kicked and starved. When she was picked up, she would not yip or yelp as dogs do, but would scream like a child – piercing and prolonged. Yet, on first sight, she came to me and laid her trembling chin in my outstretched hand.

Poco is a spoiled little princess now, here in Denver. She sleeps under the bed, while the others sleep in their runs. She always seems to get a little extra – even though all the dogs are greatly loved. She doesn’t trust many people, but she adores me and wants to be wherever I am. Sometimes when I see her looking wistfully at me, I see the spirit of another dog from long ago. She is brown, where Cookie was gray. She has no mask or whiskers, but she has deep, intelligent eyes. She's thin, even though well fed.
I haven’t had a drink or a toke of smoke in more than 17 years, and Poco’s never taken another blow from human hands or feet, since coming under my wing. May I somehow, through her, atone for the times I betrayed the love of that other devoted soul, a lifetime ago.

I carry Bolinas in my DNA, even though I lived there for only a few years, three decades ago. I live a privileged life now, surrounded by a rich and diverse orchard of family and friends. Backyard Steve is a story told to people who can’t envision me ever sleeping in the rain, begging for a smoke, or slugging down bad wine under a tree outside the town bar.

In a box, in a closet, there’s still an old Honer Blues Harp. The reeds are blown out, and it hasn’t been played for a long, long time. Last time it was played, Mean Jean Greenberg, Dean Greenstreet, and Backyard Steve (a.k.a.: ‘Will Do Anything, Inc.’) drank under the Bolinas full moon while Cookie howled the blues.

In the Soft Hills of Marin

(c)1996

In the soft hills of Marin

...there are wooded places as serene as a chapel

where the water is sweet, and the air is scented with redwood, cedar, and moss

The brooks that flow laugh like children

and deer have worn trails that weave through the massive ferns

In times disquieted, I'd retreat to those woods, taking my heart there as an offering

asking for the spirit of that place to give it rest

Often I would stay through the summer's evenings, listening to the voices of the forest as they conversed in nature's many tongues

I would listen for wordless wisdom, spoken in the groaning of an old tree, or the song of the passing hummingbird

The night would fall so softly, without threat of harm or malevolence in it's sheltering dark

- without threat of harm..

Confusion can't hold sway for long, when taking the counsel of the glen

and the darkness there was a womb, that comforted and nourished

The enfolding trees were dense as wool, and left the moonlight to dance on upper limbs

- not passing to the forest floor; not intruding on the slumbering glades

Sitting there, wrapped in the forest's mothering arms, I pondered my place

and found it there amongst the saplings, sprouting up from the decay of fallen parents

I found in the tumbling water of those gentle brooks a likeness of myself - not in my reflection, but in it's ever-traveling course

One such evening I saw a single star, revealed through the forest canopy

as if it were the only one in the sky

(for the darkness of the forest ceiling merges into the night sky)

and I thought about the light of that one star, reaching me now as it dashed across the universe

And I thought about perspective -

of how from a certain place in this great universe, that light has not yet shone

but the emanation of it, from where I now viewed, was as ancient as all imagining

Looking back into the reaches of time

I knew that I was brother to that light, not residing here; not a slave to this time, place, or dimension

I knew that I was a fellow traveler

not yet here from some perspectives, already gone from others

I knew that I was a changeling, taking this form only for an instant, as I passed through this momentary place

And the trees whispered their approval, and the forest was hushed in awe of God

I was not disquieted any longer

feeling comfort in my smallness, and humbled by my awakening

Those trees that loved me so, never questioned their being

They never asked if their bark was too thick, or their limbs too spindly

They came with no doubts, troubles or disturbances

They came as trees, happy to be so, loving the sun, the wind, the earth that held them firm

knowing perfectly how to simply be a tree

not wishing to be a bird, nor complaining that they were not the stalwart rocks

If they suffered a lightening strike that bent their limbs, or changed the course of their approach skyward

they were no less a tree

- no less...

I thought of the questions that I asked of God, insulting God with thoughts of my imperfection

I thought of all I aspired to be, because of what I thought I never was

and of the time passing like that spear of light

vanishing in a breath

And I knew that I was wasting the opportunity, to be perfectly who I was

I sat as the sun promised to rise, not yet showing itself above the unseen horizon

and I thanked the night, and those gentle woods, for giving me their wisdom, and showing me a path to God

I stretched, and began to walk in the hazy dawn

back down that well worn trail

feeling more than when I came

~Steve

How I Came to be Known as BYS

Any excuse for a party was a good excuse in Bolinas, and a party could erupt any time, without warning or provocation. Many a day would begin quietly enough with two guitars, a six-pack, and three locals singing favorites on the sidewalk in front of Snarley's, and end with a full blown wingding in the streets. Cheap wine in gallon jugs and sweet, green home-grown would circulate like a mean rumor, as bleary eyed locals banged on beer cans and stomped out down-home rhythms with vibram soled clod-hoppers.

Often these outbreaks would splinter into factional parties, as cliques of poets or hippies or yuppies would leave the street festivities and regroup in shire-like homes tucked into the town's outer residential areas of the Mesa , The Little Mesa,Dogpatch, Paradise Valley or The Flats.

So it was that with such enthusiasm as would be found in the happenings of unplanned hoedowns, it need almost not be mentioned that planned events were met with even greater exuberance. Thus, when Scowley's posted the sign on the front door announcing the first screening of Piero Resta's new movie, (filmed entirely on location in Bolinas in the tradition of cinema verite, and using only local talent) the town began to buzz.

This was to be a gala with a full course meal, and reserved seating only, the sign advised; and so the names began to fill up the pages of notebook paper on the clipboard by Scowley's decrepit old cash register with amazing rapidity.

In that by this time I had established myself as head bottle washer and front-line gopher for the restaurant, my name was automatically placed on the list - as protocol dictated that even staff must reserve a place at one of Scowleys' heavy wooden tables for this most cultured of affairs. Wishing more to be among the glitterati than the crew for this event, I asked to be given the evening off in order that I might be free to fully enjoy the festivities.

Finally arrived the evening of the screening. Bolinians were decked out in the newest jeans and the crispest flannel, or for the more flashy elements the most gilded brocades, Guatemalan weaves, silks and turquoise. The line formed down the sidewalk, stretching past the general store, all the way to the service station at the corner of Wharf and Brighton roads.

At last the doors opened, and as each name was confirmed on the crumpled and coffee stained list, that person was admitted into the seriously overbooked cabaret-for-a-night.

As I took my place at the threshold, a fateful moment came to pass. Not knowing my actual surname, and in keeping with my current place of residence, the Fontans had recorded my name on the list as simply 'Backyard Steve', and so this was the name which was loudly confirmed before a significant portion of the town population. The name was blurted out for all to pick up and pass around with pure delight.

"BACKYARD STEVE!...How perfect!...HAHAHAHAHA!". It rolled off the tongue and passed from mouth to mouth like a chain kiss. Much to my dismay, a nickname was born. In a single stroke, my name and address had become the same.

The party was a smashing success of course, and soon after (or was it during?) dinner the booze was broken out of many multiples of brown bags, so that by the time of the screening one could have gotten rave approval for the showing of Grandma's Autopsy. The crowd was primed for a grand time. Following the screening - in which Piero revealed the graphic lovemaking of Richie and Ebo, as well as a Chaplain-esque vignette of me in cowboy getup hamming it up in fast-silent motion around scowley's pool room - all proceeded to get roundly drunk.

I dimly recall playing a 10 minute drum solo on a trap set which appeared at some point during the evening, along with saxophones, tubas, accordions and many empty wine jugs, all of which became tools of musical mayhem as revelers tooted, banged and screeched into the rowdy night. Beyond this point my memory of the evening begins to dim, but above all I remember this night as that of my dubious christening.

My Arrival

(c)1994

I came to Bolinas as something of a waif - not really belonging to the streets, but lacking in the social graces necessary to ingratiate myself to the general populace. I came with only the clothes on my back, and a desire to establish something of a home and a life for myself in a place free from the constraints of the negative expectations of my family in Denver.

I was all of eighteen years of age, although by producing altered draft cards and birth certificates I was able to make periodic forays into Smiley's Schooner Saloon. Admission to Smiley's was of paramount importance then, as here was the focus of all social life in town. It's regular denizens were the likes of Jean Greenburg, Bobby Jean D'Accardo, George Marzocchi, Bob Creely, Bad Ass Dolomite, Greg (Grog) Hewlett, Coon, Nairobi Steve, Mike Mahoney, and a host of other local talent. I'd produce the altered documents at around the time of my birthday, and would manage to binge for several weeks before someone would realize that it was only a year before that I was previously determined to have been under-age. This having been the case on my nineteenth and twentieth birthdays, my twenty first was met with great skepticism.

The Shoppe, as it is now known, was then a bait/tackle/beer Shop known as Snarley's, which was open only according to the hangover-driven whims of it's proprietor.

Scowley's Restaraunt was originally the town's malt shop, which evolved into a funky and down home cafe after it's inheritance by the Fontan brother's from their belated dad, Paul. In the years of my association with Scowley's I never knew his first name, in that 'Pop' was spoken with highest reverence and no other name was relevant.

Thus stood the triad of Snarley's and Scowleys, which flanked each other, across the street from Smiley's, which faced it's sister businesses as if in retort to their curmudgeonly names.

Upon my first arrival in town I was struck, like everyone, by it's unique beauty, it's remarkable diversity, and an indefinable allure. Russ Revere would likely cringe at my telling of this, but it was him who directed me to Bolinas after meeting me while hitchhiking near Big Sur. We were both southbound, and had each caught a ride in the same van from different points along Highway 1. Russ was a bean pole in jeans and buckskin, who looked remarkably like many of the Catholic renditions of Jesus, with flowing brown hair and a full beard, and friendly, knowing eyes.

I'd told him in conversation of my aspirations to be a songwriter, and shared with him some lyrics I carried with me in a song book. In retrospect, I think Russ's aesthetic values may have been blurred by the joint we'd shared. He was moved to the extent that he drafted a letter of introduction to Paul Kantner, and drew me a map to town - cautioning me to expect no sign pointing to Bolinas from the highway. If he'd actually heard me sing, I believe that Russ's map would have directed me directly to the heart of south-central L.A.

Having no clear destination at the time, I immediately disengaged from my south-bound ride, and changed course for this place so hip as to have a longhaired, buckskinned, hitchhiker (Russ), on the board of Public Utilities Directors.

A day later I was a hundred miles to the north, riding in thick, mystical fog along the edge of the Bolinas Lagoon, past stands of peeling eucalyptus with their ornamental drapery of Spanish moss, spying stilted egrets and herons posing in the shallows through the mist. My ride into town was speechless, except for the sewing machine whir of the V.W. bug I'd caught my ride in. The envelope of fog was like church, making conversation seem inappropriate.

I somehow knew in my gut that I was coming home - a place I'd never really known in my nomadic, dysfunctional life to that point. The feeling was strong and inexplicable - perhaps intuition or maybe a prophesy to be self-fulfilled.

Following my map to it's end point at 'The Airplane House' on Brighton Beach, I anxiously pushed the button at the tall gate there, and peered up humbly at the overhead camera, which peered down with a seemingly menacing disapproval. I buzzed, and waited and buzzed again and waited and buzzed again... and made the misbegotten and wishful decision that the fuckin' buzzer was OBVIOUSLY broken. The natural course then, having a personal letter of reference as my passcard, was to find another way in! I naively clambored over the tall gate, into a wonderland of hand formed redwood tiling around the bluest of pools with Ferrari parked at hand near a series of sliding glass doors.

So this was to be my destiny: to rub elbows with the creative rich, to bask in the light of the recognition of my famous peers. I 'd known it all along... Emboldened by my letter, I walked around the pool, past the carved front door, and seeing a man sitting on a large cushion with guitar in hand I knocked upon the sliding door there.

Obviously startled, the man inside made no move from his place, but through the closed door suspiciously asked me what THE HELL I wanted.

Raising my crumpled paper hopefully, I said "I have a letter!"

In a single maneuver the guitar was set aside and from some concealed place within near reach came a sawed-off shotgun leveled through the glass at my chest.

" I can explain! I have a letter!" I said breathlessly.

I paraphrase his response as "Get the fuck outa here NOW!!!", or words near this shade of meaning.

"Perhaps another time, when he's in the mood to receive guests..." was my first thought. Wwithout further discussion I exited by the same route, but quicker, than I had entered.

During my first few days in town, I slept on the hill adjacent to the intersection of Wharf and Brighton roads. I found a bush large enough to conceal me, and holed up like a rabbit there until being awakened one night by a number of renegade dogs tearing at my sleeping bag with the idea of making me the night's sport. Grabbing a nearby branch, and connecting solidly with a couple of indiscriminate swings, I changed their plans, but was convinced of the wisdom of finding other quarters.

A sympathetic 'local' directed me to a platform in the trees, built at the edge of the Francesco Mesa, which served as among the most beautiful places I've ever occupied. - But only for a few days until the wind and rains wrecked the plastic sheet I'd hung in the branches, soaking me and my few belongings to the marrow.

I'll always remember the sight of the lagoon at sunrise from that perch; flocks of white egrets rising gracefully into the pink skies as flocks of smaller birds rose and circled in juxtaposition, the sun a golden promise behind the misty Tamalpias Ridge. This was salve to the bruises of my hapless adolescence, and here I began to find a little healing.

A guy named Bruce invited me to stay in a cabin on the back of a property near Smiley's as a "house sitter". I spent one inexplicably creepy night in the place until being informed the following day that the house was vacant because the property had recently been the site of Bolinas' only recorded murder.

By this time I'd already begun to learn the ropes of survival in town. On many days I could wash dishes in Scowley's in exchange for pocket change and a cheese and veggie omelet which filled every vacant inner cavity for the duration of the day. Fruit trees overhanging the walkway on Brighton and parts of Wharf Road., berry bushes, and Bob Cole's garden provided other sustenance. There were times so lean that I'd even contend with the dogs for scraps from Michael Rafferty's butcher barrel. At one point I was loaned a large tent, which I set up deep in the bushes behind what is now the lumber yard.

During this time I adopted the only other waif in town more scrawny and raggedy than me. Cookie was pure Bohound - a skinny terrier mix with grey/brown hair, more aware and intelligent than a dog ought to be. She'd chewed off most of the rear quarter of her coat from flea allergies, and was emaciated from the strain of nursing a litter of eleven puppies.

Cookie'd been living in the crawl space of a house, near the bar where she spent much of her time looking pitiful and mooching hot dogs (much like me). I gathered up her puppies in a box and moved the whole grunting, wriggling mass to my campsite.

I made daily raids on the butcher barrel, and saved every Scowley's table scrap in a futile effort to fatten Cookie up. Eventually I came to realize that her bony countenance was a part of her survivability, as she made mooching from soft hearted saps and tourists her life's avocation. I gave Cookie my hearth and heart; she gave me fleas.

One morning at my campsite as I slept in the stale, humid atmosphere of thirteen pair of heaving lungs in one now small tent, I was called from my slumber by the booming, authoritarian words:

"YOU IN THERE!...COME OUT!"

I poked my groggy face from out the tent flap to the sight of a green uniformed Sheriff's Deputy.

"What're ya' doin' here?" - more demand than question.

"Somebody in the bar told me I could stay on their land here" I lied lamely.

"Izzat so? Well let me explain to you that you are camping on MY property, and if you and every last trace of you aren't gone in FIVE MINUTES you're goin' to jail for trespassing!"

It's astounding what a little motivation can do to prompt an eighteen year old into action.

My next try for shelter involved setting up the tent behind a large wooden bulkhead on the beach. This was to be my lesson in the action of the tides, following the total immersion of all I owned in that night's high tide. The experience was made even more edifying by the ordeal of dragging a wet canvas tent and all it's contents up the face of the cliff to a point high enough that the tide could be safely waited out. I earned my honorary degree in studies of gravity and moisture this long night.

Shortly hereafter, I was required to surrender the tent to it's original owner, and so I took up residence on the burl slab table in Scowley's back yard. By nailing a vertical piece of scrap board at each end of the table, I was able to stretch a length of string across the table's length. Then by draping a sheet of plastic over this I created a basic pup tent. Cookie's puppies had been adopted out by this time, and so this more compact arrangement was livable, with she and her ever present fleas occupying the area at the foot of my sleeping bag.Here we huddled against the wind and rain as winter set in with full force.

I awakened one bizarre morning, after a night of pouring rain and the highest tide of the year, on an island - as all of downtown had flooded. In disbelief I watched as Odd Todd paddled by on his surfboard through Scowley's back yard and on around the side of the adjoining surf shop, cheerfully giving me a smile and a wave as he passed.

It was around this period when I'd been around long enough to have become a familiar face, banging each morning on Scowley's ancient upright piano, mooching cigarettes in front of Snarley's, or watching the evening's show (the comings and goings of local life) from under the tree outside of the bar. Having a nickname at this time was a sort of recognition and a sign of acceptance. I was not sure however, that I was at all pleased with the low implications of being called 'Backyard Steve', as a result of my place of residence in Scowley's back yard. I, after all, aspired to greater heights.

The Butterfly Effect

I received a donation from a 6th grade Teacher yesterday, on behalf of a student of hers who's trying to raise money for her local shelter.
The teacher asked me if I would make a comment on the student's blog, as someone who "gives big" to someone making their own 'small' effort.

This is what I came up with, for better of for worse:

Dear Jamie,
I am the CEO of a nonprofit organization called NACER.org. I want to congratulate you on your compassionate efforts, and share a story with you.

A little boy once had a hard life. His mom and dad were divorced, and his mom had many problems. His dad was in the military, and was stationed in a far away place. His mom sometimes hit him, and spent many nights away from home, leaving the little boy alone with his brother.

He was alone much of the time, and spent his days playing on the desert near his home, most often looking at or for little animals that lived there.
He brought home all kinds of sick and injured animals and tended them as best he could, learning much about their bodies, what made them tick, and coming to understand many of their behaviors. For a time he thought he might want to be a veterinarian. As he grew older he thought he might want to work with higher primates, teaching them sign language and trying to understand their inner worlds. He always suspected that animals and people had a lot in common. That animals felt things just like people do - maybe in different ways, but feelings just the same.
He always felt sad for animals that were deprived, neglected or mistreated; maybe because he also felt that way at times.

But during the most important time in his educational life he wandered away from home, and lost his chance to be any kind of doctor or scientist.
He grew up to be a good man, but with many troubles of his own. It took a long time before he found the strength to have a calm and stable life. Even so, he always wanted to help people and animals - the flame inside him never died. He always tried to understand the importance and value of others, especially the animals, and still wanted to give something to make life a kinder, better thing for all. This flame is called ‘compassion’.

The man loved the ocean and became a diver, so that he could visit the fishes and the coral reefs, because he found them to be places of calm and beauty.

There were no coral reefs in the place where this man lived, so he needed to travel to far away places in order to do his diving. He began to travel to Mexico, where the world’s second largest barrier reef is.

But he didn't like being a ‘tourist’. He felt that tourists were often people who visited other places only to take something for themselves - having fun and enjoyment, but not really coming away with any understanding of the people or places they'd visited. He didn't want to just leave a few dollars behind in the pockets of rich hotel owners - he wanted to experience the land and the culture.

So when he traveled he went to out of the way places in his own car, slept in tents and ate where the people ate. He learned to speak a little bit of the language and made friends wherever he ventured.

He was always saddened to see the dogs. Everywhere he went there were dogs without names or homes - skinny dogs with broken limbs and sicknesses that made their fur fall off, or left them blind, or weak; sometimes even before they were more than a few weeks old.

He saw dogs with terrible injuries from cruelty - run down on purpose by cab drivers, shot, beaten, and starved. Sometimes these poor dogs would come into the restaurants where the man ate, hoping for a little scrap of food from humans whom they were afraid of, but depended upon to survive. He would always give them food from his plate, and always tried to show them affection and kindness - even when others tried to chase them away.

The man knew that not all of the people were mean or careless, but where there is poverty and illiteracy, there are often problems in the society that cause suffering for everyone. Many people in Mexico love their animals and treat them very well. Mexico is a diverse, complicated land, where great beauty coexists with terrible problems. Mexico can be a poor place with little opportunity, and this is why ignorant or hopeless people behave in uneducated ways - even people who might in other ways be warm, giving and faithful.

One day the man met a friend, and they discovered that they had the same feelings about the dogs in Mexico. His friend felt so strongly about helping them that she left her profitable business to attend college, so that she could become a Veterinary Technician - not because she wanted to work in a vet clinic, but because she wanted to be able to help the dogs in Mexico.

The man had acquired special skills along the way in his life, as a writer, an organizer, and in putting together organizations that helped people. He knew the rules of forming and running charitable companies, and knew about computers, and also understood the culture and people of Mexico.

These two friends put their heads together and decided that they had the perfect set of complimentary skills and ideas to do some great good.

The one thing they didn't have was lots of money. So they used what they had, and started out by buying some supplies - a few syringes and bottles of vaccines and medicines. They went to Mexico and visited a small town where they knew the suffering of the dogs was great. They brought food for the animals, and they made coloring books for the kids about taking care of them, and they did some good.

In Mexico, there are millions upon millions of homeless dogs. Its hard to imagine that giving shots to a few dogs in a small village could make a difference, where there are more suffering dogs than a person can count - even if they stayed awake every night, counting 24 hours a day, every day for months on end.

But they had seen the terrible suffering , and knew that maybe they could stop some of the suffering for even *a few* dogs.
Both of them imagined, “What if it was MY dog who was suffering - wouldn't it matter for him if someone tried to help; and wouldn't it matter to *me*?

So they did the best they could. They took pictures of the work they did, and showed these pictures to others. They asked for help, and some people responded.
Soon they had enough people and enough money to bring a Veterinarian, and some other Vet Techs back to the village.

They knew that one way to stop the suffering was to prevent the dogs from having more unwanted puppies. So they gathered together many of the dogs in the village. There, at the edge of a beautiful lagoon in a beautiful rain forest, together with the village children they operated on as many dogs as they could, until they ran out of supplies.

While they were there, they gave away clothing and books and school supplies to the people of the village, and when they left, they knew they had done a lot of good - even if only for a few dogs compared to all the dogs of Mexico.

They again brought back the pictures of their work, and found even more people willing to help. They got Doctors from the famous Animal Planet show, ‘Emergency Vets’ to help, and went back again and again, to other poor villages where Veterinarians had never gone before. And they kept going back to the first village, feeding the dogs, encouraging the children, and watching the results of their work over the course of time.

Years went by. One dog at a time, they came to realize that they had prevented the births of as many unwanted dogs in the future, as presently wander the streets of Mexico. Millions of dogs would be saved from lives of terrible suffering, starvation, loveless, unwanted lives. They would not be born where they were not wanted, and where people didn't have the resources for their care.

One dog at a time, they managed to find homes for puppies found in drain pipes, caves and under bushes. The badly injured and maimed puppies got special attention, sometime keeping them up long into the night for weeks on end as they struggled to save little lives that otherwise nobody would have cared for.

Sometimes they lost those battles, and they shed tears of great sadness each time. But more often, they would win, and a sick or broken little puppy would go on to find a home where they could share the immense love that lives in the hearts of all pups everywhere. Hundreds upon hundreds of dogs, over the years, found new homes in a new land where they were loved and wanted.

One dog at a time, the man and his friends made a difference. There are still millions of suffering dogs in Mexico, and millions more in poor places around the world. The work will never be finished. If the man were to look at all that will never be done, he might become defeated and overwhelmed. Instead he sees the good that has mattered for each little life, and for the people he has touched, together with his many friends in so many places.

This man knows that he is blessed with a rich and rewarding life, and that he was able to take his own sadness and turn it into compassion, and heal his own heart by giving - starting with almost nothing. He has not felt alone in the world for a very long time.

Jamie, you are a small person doing something that might seem small to others, when all the problems of the world seem so big. But a butterfly that spreads it’s wings in China can start a little breeze that adds to another little breeze that someday makes a hurricane, that blows a hundred years later on the other side of the world.

You are a butterfly, spreading your wings. The more times your wings move the air around you, the bigger the effect in ways and places you will never see, and can never even know. The effect is mighty.

You too have the flame of compassion in your heart - a special and powerful thing in this difficult, challenging world.

I hope and pray that your life is good, and that you begin with strength and love in your voyage of compassion. You are making a difference, Jamie, and I salute you.
Sincerely,

Steven Nelson
CEO, NACER.org
Aurora, Colorado, USA / Q. Roo & Yucatan, Mexico

About These Chronicles...

About These Chronicles...

Dear Bolinas,

I may have been familiar to some of you as "Backyard" Steve in the days of my residence here, thirty-some years ago.

In his book, "The Town That Fought To Save Itself", Orville Schell devotes the following paragraph to me: "...Steve. Shy street person. Arrived several years ago and crashed in the loft at Future Studies office. Loves animals. Plays piano. Has just kind of been around all this time without going too far over the edge." (Goes on to quote dedication from my mural in Scowley's bathroom).

While Orville's book was a wonderful chronicle about the intellectual and political life of the town at that time, and should be required reading for all Bolinians, it is as incomplete a description as the above paragraph.

I hope to paint another picture - a mosaic and a composite made from the piecing together of my moments. How I loved my life in that time, and the people who colored it then, as now.

In his novels "Tortilla Flats" and "Cannery Row", set in Salinas and Monterey, Steinbeck wrote little of the political life there, yet his portrayal of the lives of his characters leaves a lasting and vivid image of what LIVING there was like in those times. He captured the spiritual and emotional lives of the people with richness and color, reaching the essence of them.

Bolinas is taken straight from the ghost of John Steinbeck, an update on Tortilla Flats, where the most important forces are those of love, and lust, laughter, faith, fear, and passion. Bolinas wears these on her sleeve, unashamed in the face of the greater world of our time. That world which values it's technology , productivity and profit motives above fat chickens, Father Cribari wine, and the blithe warmth of exceptional company.

While Orwell's dumb world of limited language and canned mass entertainment slowly becomes a grim, self-imposed reality in the greater world, Bolinas seeks in it's own sometimes wrenching and self absorbed way a greater quality of living.

I have stories to tell you, of where we have been together, and of where we are now. I can tell them only from my perspective - though they're my stories as well as ours. I tell them as an offering of love - like the mural I offered some thirty years ago, now sadly, and like these stories - a memory only. I hope that you find them a message of reassurance, not as some comparison weighted with then-vs.-now value judgments, but as a point of reference. I hope to remind you of how you came to be who you are (from the limits in time and perspective of my arrival and passage), and to share with you my sense of optimism about your fitness to meet the changes which many of you seem to dread, but which are so inevitable.

My dedication may be all that remains of that painting, but it stands today as the same one I give these writings.

To the people of Bolinas: you have given me shelter from the stormy world. Words cannot express my love for ALL of you. I therefore dedicate in your name, and give to you these stories, with love,

..................................Backyard Steve