Ray, Ray, Go Away

Ok, I promised myself I would not do this. I said I would not use this blog as a forum for bashing, hating, or rambling on. But, I can't take it anymore. I must use this to vent in some manner before I explode. Writing helps me get it all off my chest and mind. So, I basically feel like I would be doing the world of blog readers a disservice by not capturing what is reeling around in my head right now. I would also like to be able to fall asleep before 3 am, so I think that for my own health I must. So I begin...
No other two nouns in the whole history of human nature bring to mind such seizure inducing, nauseating pains as the two I'm about to mutter (children and the elderly may want to stop reading now), Rachel Ray. Now I know that there are websites for this type of banter, I hate Rachel Ray, for one. But, I just need to speak my piece on my own little slice of the world wide web.
I just don't get it. Why? Why is America so obsessed with this cherubic faced, husky voiced, horrible acronym creating, now celebrity? Everywhere you turn America is just vomiting her up, and I, for one, do not have a sympathetic stomach.
I get it. She came from nothing, fought her way up the food and television ladder. However, if I would have seen her coming, I would have kicked said ladder right to the ground without hesitating even for a second.
There was a time you could just simply change the channel if you weren't interested in spending an eternity (aka, 30 minutes) listening to her sophomoric little quips on life. Now, you can't even drive down the interstate without being bombarded by her presence. She is everywhere! On billboards, on posters, on cracker boxes, on magazines, on books, on tv, on the radio... I'm actually waiting to open the door of my van one day and have her pop out of the hidden fridge.
I think the worst part of RaRay is, well lets be honest here, parts of RaRay are: A. She has an annoying nickname (and you thought TomKat and LiLo were bad). B. She hasn't really changed her hair or clothing style since 1986. And the most dreaded of all, C. She has created the monster that is Rayisms.
For those of you that have been living in a cult in the middle of Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, etc. and don't know Rayisms, let me explain a few. EVOO, Extra Virgin Olive Oil. STOUP, cross of stew and soup. YUMM-O, super annoying, childish way to say delicious. SAMMIES, what our parents used to call sandwiches when they were talking to us at the ripe old age of five. I could understand if she was doing a show for the local KinderCare, but we are adults. Please learn to speak to us on at least an 18 year old level.
I understand that her shows are designed for the average housewife, husband, or even college student. I get that my level of knowledge of the food industry far exceeds most that watch her. I know full well that if you are a friend of Oprah's you can get away with anything you want. But, at least, lets have the common courtesy to tip in a decent manner. If you don't get what I'm saying, turn on her show, $40 A Day. Her average tip amount here is a whopping ten percent. I think that someone forgot to let her know that she is one of the highest paid food celebrities out there. Maybe if she figures it out, she'll lay off a bit. Or, if all the heavens align, retire. I think it's about time!

Soul Searching

My mother recently phoned me with news that she had just found an old post card I had once sent her from San Francisco. The postcard itself isn't the important thing here. What was inscribed on the back is what made my brain start churning out old memories of my favorite city.

I can remember going down Lombard street for the first time when I was about 7 years old. My dad stopped briefly at the top of the hill in our old 1979, shit-brown colored, Chevy Blazer. "Everyone buckled in?", he says as he revs the engine a bit just to freak out my mom. He takes off, at what seemed to me, mock speed. Twisting and turning down the curviest street in the world, my box of books, crayons, and tapes flew off the back seat and onto the floor below. I just sat there squealing with delight, clapping my hands, begging my dad to do it again,as if we were on a ride at Great America. My mom attributes my joy at this moment to the reason that I had already been placed on high risk insurance by the age of 19, a fact of which I am still proud of to this day (drive fast, brake hard, take chances). But I think that moment was what did it for me. At that moment I fell in love with the city. All it took for me was one car ride, 15 seconds in time, one block.

I returned a few years later with my family on the way to Yosemite. Golden Gate Park, to a 10 year old, seemed like a vast open wilderness. Sausalito became my new dream house location. To live on a houseboat seemed like the most romantic, fun, adventurous thing you could do and still be an adult. Visiting Alcatraz for the first time made me realize that maybe I shouldn't have taken that piece of Hubba Bubba from the Ben Franklin store recently. Although, the idea that people couldn't survive the swim from the island to the mainland just seemed preposterous to my 10 year old, chlorine laden, swimmers brain.

I returned again and again throughout my teens and twenties, making it an almost yearly trek. I devoured books that had anything to do with Haight Ashbury and the Beat Generation.

I can remember getting chills the first time I walked into City Lights bookstore. It was as if I could feel the presence of Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, and Diana DiPrima all sitting around reading poetry, smoking cigarettes, creating masterpieces. I wondered what it was like to share a flat with ten of your closest friends. Holding odd jobs, supporting each other and each others lifestyle. Going to clubs and snapping to the great jazz musicians that were up and coming at the time like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charles Mingus.

I stood on the steps of 710 Ashbury Street and imagined I could hear the guitar strumming and intoxicating voice of Jerry Garcia floating out the second story window. I wandered through Golden Gate park and caught a whiff of Patchouli Oil, taking my brain to the winter of '67 and the Human Be-In. I yearned to be born a couple decades earlier. To have been able to experience the Summer of Love in the city that seemed to define the hippy culture.

Each time I return these feelings rush over me again and again. I walk around the bustling streets in an almost trance like state. I can feel the pulsating beat of the cable cars rush through my body as they glide past me. I digest the delicious garlic creations from The Stinking Rose by smell alone, blocks before I can even see the neon sign. I giggle like a little school girl at the sea lions at the 39th Street Pier as if I am hearing them for the first time.

Although this city pulls at my heart and brain on a constant basis, I have rarely felt any desire to live and work here. I think that somewhere along the line, when you live in a place, you tend to loose your curiosity of it. The joy and wonder that it once evoked takes a backseat to daily obligations, meetings, and finding a parking spot. I will always come back, but most likely will never stay for good. But never say never right?

What did all this have to do with a found post card sent to my family years ago? As I said before, it wasn't the picture on the front that was awe inspiring or thought provoking. It was what I wrote out on the back: "I may not have left my heart in San Francisco, but I do think that here is where I found my soul."

Goin down the road feelin...?

Dancing, twirling, sitting still, still dancing in my head.
Running away from the past, just brings me closer to the present.
One day I will have to learn to feel everything, to digest it whole.
That’s the worst thing that I can think of at this point.

I’ve been perfectly fine, well as fine as bad can get and still be fine.
I’ve ridden the waves, out the perfect storm, the broken sunsets of life; and lived to tell.
It’s not so bad. It’s about the best that I can give and get back in exchange.
I have hurt as much as I’ve hurt. Yet I’ve loved till it hurt worse.

My brain moves at the perfect rate of a class V river.
Then it freezes over like 2 am in January.
Nothing moving, nothing has to.
Silence, bitter cold, darkness….

I wake up to the sound of my head.
It’s complicated…it’s simple…it senselessly makes no sense.
At the same time it’s refreshing.
If all my thoughts were clear…what would be the point?

I grab on tight to the last little bit of sanity and hold on for dear life.
I’m just not sure who’s life I’m holding on for.
Is it better to live for someone.
Is it better to have someone live for you.

It’s the crystal blue aspects of a normal life that throw me.
Live the life you want to live, they say. But what’s that?
I’m a dreamer, yet somewhere my dreams turned on me.
Somewhere I fell out of my head into my life and I don’t think I landed on my feet.

I am searching for my cash cab to come and pick me up.
I think I have enough random knowledge to kill it.
Then it can drop me off at the mountain top.
Give me what I need, not what I want for once. That’s all I ask

Hemingway, I don't think we're in...Chicago..anymore.

The age old question, can you ever truly go home? I ask myself this as I drive north on Ashland from the Armitage Kennedy exit. I look around at the familiar buildings, half of which are currently under reconstruction. I cruise past the now Irish pub on the corner of Wellington and Ashland and remember when it was a Russian restaurant, the name escapes me now. What is still fresh in my mind is the fact that they would come and pick you up for dinner in an old beat up limo, and during Lent would have a huge banner outside that read, "Come eat your Easter Lamb here, open Easter Sunday".

I cross Belmont and upon crossing it feel as if I cam crossing into a whole different city. These used to be my blocks, Ashland, between Belmont and Addison. There is a brand new gym built in the old multistory brick structure that used to house Montgomery Ward. It had been vacant for quite some time I suppose but, there was something soothing about that. It was almost as if people were morning the loss, not ready to move on and up. It made me wonder if they still sold Christmas trees in the winter and pumpkins in the fall at the little park in front of it.

Across the street, condo city. I stop and stare at the condos wondering; who lives there, what do they do, where did they come from, and if they remember my Chicago. I smile upon remembering late nights at Ike and Ricks dancing to the horrible musical selections on the jukebox (Cher's "Do you believe in Love after Love" still makes me laugh). I recall running by the gated "adult novelty shop" with the $1 entry fee and wondering who was inside. And memories of eating nauseatingly greasy food at Sparkies while drunkenly arguing with my ex-boyfriend now bring a smile to my face.

The coach house I lived in is still standing, as is the house in front. That is about all that remains of the past. I wonder if the little old man still lives near, and paces around the tiny parking lot in back from early morning well on into the night. If the Cuban credit union still has raging parties in the back room on weekends. If the feline sized city rats still stand outside the front door and block entry to the sidewalk as if they are playing some sort of twisted game of chicken with you.

As I cruise north, I see that my old corner bar, Ivan's, no longer is there. I do wish it was as easy to remove the memories of me falling off a bar stool while showing the hot new bartender my tattoo (by lifting up my dress) in a post-finals drunken blur. Further down I see that Tai's Till 4, now has a flashy neon sign out front. I try to peer in the windows, but the afternoon sun glares and blocks most of my view. I think to myself, part of the allure of Tai's (to my crew at least) was the fact that it was dingy and kind of gross. But at 3/4 am, who really cares, right? And if you do care, why are you still out, and why aren’t you drunk?

Ashland Ave. itself has even had a face-lift. Cement plant potters divide the north and south bound traffic lanes. It looks more like a boulevard than and avenue to me. Newcomers to the area most likely look at it and say how cute of an area they live in. How convenient to everything it is. And how increasing difficult it is to find a parking spot for their new VW Jetta's or Toyota Prius's.

I, however, miss the old pockets of an up and coming area. The diversity of both the people and the income levels. I wonder if people still smile at you when you pass them on the street. If they say hello to you if you bump into them a couple times in the coffee shop or bar.

As I turn around to make my way into the Caribou Coffee at School and Ashland I am shaken from my deep thought by a familiar sound. It is one that helped lull me to sleep night after night in my early 20's. I look to the north to see the brown line roll across the bridge over Ashland. At that moment I realize that you can go home, sometimes the scenery along the way just has to change a bit.