Train Rides Always Turn Into Poems that Blur to the Meaningless

10-16-98 F 4:25 PM
On the commuter train to Oceanside.  Wonder if you can get a drink.  That's about it.  I'm going to be a bit late.  Twenty minutes.  What else?  Pretty non-descript cars I'm in.  Everybody's reading newspapers except the long-haired guy across from me who just stares at the backs of his sunglasses.  A lady with headphones just sat down across from me.  I guess I could take this train to Fullerton if I wanted.  A gray-bearded guy next to me reads Lord Foul's Bane.  I read that in the 8th grade.  An Indian kid named Tari Razi loaned it to me.  He's probably rich now.  I remember from the locker room he had the fattest ball sack I'd ever seen.  Elephantitis or maybe he just hadn't learned to jack yet and was suffering from a serious backlog.  Whatever.  I should have picked out a seat up top.  When I'm done with this, I can knock off another chapter or so of The Sportswriter.  After that, I'll read Krakauer's account of Everest, Into Thin Air.  Then I'll go see the movie Everest at the Imax.  I'm not breathing so good.  I'd never make it to the top of Everest.  I wish this stupid train would get moving.  Shirelle's going to a bunch of parties this weekend.  She'll bone someone.  What else?  This seat is pretty damned uncomfortable.  It's going to take an hour and half to get there.  I have only eaten a bran muffin today.  I got it at the donut shop across from school.  What the hell else?  What the fuck else?  Feel a slight sore throat trying to assert itself.  When will this fucking train get going?  [detailed blue ink drawing of a hand]  Ah, we're moving--moving along past graffitoed, barbed-wired, cinder-block walls.  Some kind of housing project, and the mighty Los Angeles Concrete Gully flows under heaps of rubble, under 1920's LA Boom-time bridges; downtown's skyscrapers sparkle in the late afternoon like a futuristic dream.  The train picks up speed.  Click clacks some, roars under overpasses.  SNFK 97 says the gully.  GBCK says the gully.  VADER DOG says the gully.  We slow past the birthplace of the city's garbage bins, go eerily slow through a haunted industrial wasteland southeast of the city.  The concrete mills stand like giant robots stalled in world domination.  GETX says a tanker car.  There's the ACE Metal Spinning Company.  Powerline towers await collapse.  Santa Fe Roadway.  JB Hunt  XTRA Lease Hyundai Transamerica Maersk Homburg Alliance Shippers INC.  REDON  All Purpose Spine Care Speed Queen

10-15-98 Th 12:40 PM
Stuffed full of sweet and sour chicken.  Today was picture day.  It took me an hour to get out of bed this morning, and I didn't have time to shave.  I ate a bowl of rice this morning.  Just like The Sportswriter, Independence Day has begun as a narration of superb psycho-social perception.  Unlike The Sportswriter, though, will it sustain that level for four hundred pages?  I hope so.  There's so much I want to read.  I feel dead-brained again today.  It's going to be a struggle to write three pages.  One success on the day:  I managed to attach enough menace to my silent reading directive that all twenty-seven children have been mute for twenty minutes now.  Haven't read the newspaper today.  Didn't read it yesterday either.  Doesn't really seem necessary now that I can never play "Jeopardy" for money again.  I HAVE to do a third-person page when I get home today.  Maybe I should take Butt out for a bite or a drink tonight.  I have to change my bulletin boards soon.  What else?  What else?  Anne Senorvilla's a writer.  Fucking Oprah Winfrey.  I'm such an idiot.  What else?  Ugh.  I'm not even halfway through this.  Frank Bascombe is a real estate agent now.  He assigns, rightly, life-shaping importance to buying a home.  It's prescient of the effort I will have to make in a year.  I've got to refer that imbecile Pablo to RSP.  I read the kids some scary stories.  One about the ghost of a murdered girl.  It worked pretty well.  Now I put on that horrible Columbus movie.  What else?  Walk home.  Write.  Lie on the couch.  Walk to work.  Come home from work.  Go out for a drink.  Go home.  Sleep.  Get up next morning.  Go to work again.  I have to call Amtrak when I get home.  I should clean my room and clear off my desk, too.  I hope my Advanta card comes today.  Tomorrow is payday.  I feel like drawing a picture, but of what?  Maybe I should rent a movie tonight.  What else?  What else?  There ain't no [pencil sketch of the cover of Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic with the top of a house growing out of a guy's head] light on in this attic.  Is that a ghost in the window?  What else?  Why didn't I say Oprah?  What else?  Fifteen minutes until I can quit this.  Why didn't I say Oprah?  I don't have anything to say. At least I can quit this now.

October 14, 1998 Wed.  10:50 AM
Well, so I went on "Jeopardy!" yesterday.  Ugh.  I only won one game.  I went into Final Jeopardy in the second game winning by two thousand.  I had been down four thousand at one point, but came stormin' back, that's right "stormin'", in Double Jeopardy to take the lead.  The Final Jeopardy category was "T.V."  I had $8,800.  The guy in second place, a seven-foot Lurch, had $6,800.  I had to bet $6800.  The answer was something like this:  This talk show began as the "A.M. Chicago Hour" before going national in 1985."  I wrote "What is 'Good Morning America?'" though, I was pretty sure that couldn't have been right.  Lurch, from Decatur, Illinois, would afterward tell us how he used to watch the "AM Chicago" hour, and so knew that the correct question was "What is 'The Oprah Winfrey Show?'" and so Lurch went home with my $14,000.  I won $13,700 in the first game and got an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas for coming in second in the second game.  The trip is valued at $6,600.  So, the total value of cash and prizes comes to $20,200.  Not bad for one day's work.  What'll it do to my taxes, though?  Anyway, I made enough to pay off my credit cards. It was funny.  In the first game, I kept asking God to help, but in the second game, I started thinking God would think I was greedy, so I asked Him to let whoever needed it most to win.  Now I wish I would have thought of Oprah.  Shit.  Well, at least I can go back to writing instead of studying.  I didn't make enough to quit my night school job.  Pity.  When it's all said and done, I'm up to zero.  But I won't have to send a $1,000 check to MasterCard each month anymore. 
Shirelle stopped in for lunch.  She's upset because I said I'm going to Carlsbad this weekend and because we don't live together, etc. etc.  What else?  I've got six extra kids today because a sub for Mrs. Lewis didn't show up.  My kids are kind of noisy.  Bernice invited me out to the Derby with her friends last night.  I had to tell her I was too tired.  She said, "I was going to buy you some drinks."  Then she said, "Wait a minute, you're the one who just one thirteen thousand dollars.  You should be buying me drinks."  I went to bed.  It's a bittersweet victory.  I ate a ham and cheese croissant from the donut shop.  Maybe I'll show the kids this "Magic Voyage" video about Columbus.  I think it's a lot of crap, though.  There's supposed to be an actress coming at 1:45 today, a Ms. Diaz, from "Bookpals," to read to the kids.  I would like to smoke a j when I get home.  I wish I could have won enough to quit my job. 

Probably Not

Oct. 12, 1998 M 9:30 AM
Javier is reading from his journal.  He spent the weekend eating fast food and playing video games.  "Didn't you read any books?" I asked.  "No," he said, "because it's a little boring."  "Reading books is boring?!" I say like I'm flabbergasted.  "Kids," I continue, "when you're all grown up, who's going to make the most money, the ones who played video games all the time, or the ones who read lots of books?"  "The one's who read lots of books," they chant in monontone unison.  I wonder if it's true.

Tomorrow's "Jeopardy."  I really don't want to miss class.  It's disruptive to my planning.  I don't know if the sub covers what I want her to cover. 

Today is Columbus Day.  So was it Watling Island or Samana Cay?  The latest research indicates Samana Cay.  Should we honor Colombus?  Should it be called Genocide Day?  His is a strange tale.  If he was governor of Cuba, why is he buried in Santo Domingo, I wonder.  And besides, haven't I heard he's interred in Sevilla, Spain.  I wonder why no one has tried to locate the shipwreck of the Santa Maria.  And how did Colon fall into disfavor back in Spain?  And to think that Ferdinand and Isabela's Inquisition was a driving force behind Cortes' conquest of in the New World.  Whatever.  Don't know what I can do about it now.  Hand over my credit cards and move to Europe?  What else?  I didn't shave this morning, in case you were wondering.  The rounder my face gets, the pointier my nose looks.  There's a union meeting after school today.  I hope I'll be able to skip lunch today.  I'll have to arrange for the sub to sign those survey papers before I leave today.  I have to walk to LA High after school to pick up my adult school paperwork.  There won't be much time to do any last-minute studying.  I should get to bed by ten tomorrow.  I hope I go first.
Should I walk to 7/11 and get cash for some lunch or should I hold out and eat something at home?  The Gulf of Bothnia is between Sweden and Finland.  Riga is the capital of Lativa.  Talinn is the capital of Estonia.  Vilnius is the captial of Lithuania.  In 1326, Rinaldo Villamagna invented it?  What is the cannon.  Chu Yuan-Chang overthrew the Mongols and founded this Chinese dynasty.  What is the Ming Dynasty.  In 1369, he ruled India to Egypt.  Who is Tamerlane?  The year Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales.  What is 1387?  In 1419, Henry the Navigator made explorations of this continent.  What is Africa?  The year Gutenburg perfected perfected the movable type printing press.  When was 1454?  1482:  DaVinci lives.  In 1489, Johann Widman introduced these signs to mathematics.  What are + and -?

10-11-98 Sun 7:11 PM
Andres Galarraga just hit a grand slam to put the Braves up eight-three over the Padres.  I finished the Book of Jeremiah today.  It sounded like Judah was invaded by Babylon as Jeremiah had prophesied. 
Shirelle's car wouldn't start.  There seems to be a problem with the solenoid.  I had to borrow Thing's truck to give her a ride home.  That's about it.  I'll watch that "Jeopardy" tape after the baseball game.  What else?  My hands are dirty from looking under Shirelle's hood.  Isn't that interesting?  Oh, well.  In 250 AD, Mani followed this popular religion.  What is Manichaeism?  In 312 AD, he became the first Christian emperor of Rome.  Who is Constantine?  Attila the Hun invaded Europe.  When is 451 BC?  In 520 Arayabatta developed this form of mathematics.  What is Algebra?  This emperor codified Roman law in Corpus Juris Civilis?  Who is Justinian?  The year Mohammed was born.  What is 570 AD?  In 768 AD, Charlemagne became the ruler of these people?  Who were the Franks?  Horun al Rashid made this city the center of Islamic culture in 786 AD?  What is Baghdad?  In 886, he introduced the twenty-four hour day measurement.  Who was Alfred the Great?  In 936, he established the Holy Roman Empire.  Who was Otto I?  The year Lief Ericson founded a North America colony?  When was 1002?  In 1054, Abdullar ben Yassim spread Islamic culture to this continent.  What is Africa?  In 1066, William the Conqueror established this culture in Great Britain.  What is the Norman culture?  In 1096, he began a series of crusades to free the Holy Land?  Who was Pope Urban II?  In 1162, Thomas a Beckett became the arch bishop of this cathedral.  What is Canterbury?  In 1190, this man, better known as Genghis Khan, began his conquest of Asia and the near east.  Who was Temujin?  Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan order in this year.  When was 1210?  In 1215, he signed the Magna Carta. Who was King John?  In 1250, Roger Bacon gained note for inventing it.  What is the magnifying glass?  In 1259, he developed the Roman Catholic philosophy.  Who was Thomas Aquinas?  In 1264, Simon de Montfort founded this in parliament.  What is the House of Commons?  He invented the 360 degree compass in 1269.  Who was Petrus Peregrinus?  In 1271, Marco Polo traveled to the court of this Chinese emperor?  Who was Kublai Khan?  The year Joan of Arc led the French army against the English?  When was 1429?  Ferdinand and Isabella established the Inquisition in 1478.

10-10 12:33 PM Sa
I've got to call Ricardo Flowers and reschedule that financial planning meeting.  I better call Amtrak, too, about fare to Oceanside.  I ought to wind up my clock.  The Braves and Padres are coming on.  I'm drinking a beer I couldn't finish last night [pencil sketch of a polaroid of my grandma holding me when I was a baby by the apartment swimming pool in Hollywood].  That's a picture of me with my grandmother Vera Cosgrove Eaton Norfolk.  An Omen-like rip in the photo passes right between my eyes.  Yuccas stab at Granny, but we look happy together. 
The Insanity Pepper is supposed to be stopping in after he goes to Jiffy Lube.  Our friend Steve is going to be doing some work at the Pepper's sister's house up the street.  I actually wrote a few third-person [a pencil drawing of a martini] lines last night.  I picked up my camera the other day.  I haven't taken any pictures with it yet.  I can't think at all.  Maybe I should have another cup of coffee.  Should I study more after this?  Marlins, Yanks, Braves, Strike, Jays, Jays, Twins, Reds, A's, LA, Twins, Mets, Royals, Tigers, Orioles, Cards, LA, Philly, Pitt, Yanks, Yanks, Red, Reds, A's A's A's, Pitt, O's, Mets, Tigers, Cards, O's, LA, NY, LA, NY, NY, Pitt, LA  Bill, Bush, Ron, Carter, Ford, Nixon, LBJ, JFK, Ike, HST, FDR, Hoover, Coolidge, Harding Woodroow, Taft, Teddy
Titanic, English Patient, Braveheart, Gump, Unforgiven, Lambs, Wolves, Daisy, Rain Man, Emperor, Platoon, Africa, Amadeus, Endearment, Gandhi, Chariots, People, Kramer, Deer Hunter, Annie Hall, Rocky, Cuckoo's Nest, Godfather 2, Sting, Godfather, French Connection, Patton, Midnight Cowboy, Oliver!
339 B.C. Alexander the Great begins conquest of the known world.  321 BC Chandagupta forms first great empire of India  300 BC Euclid develops deductive systems of mathematics  Meng Tse spreads the philosophy of Confucianism to the Orient  250 BC Asoka, emperor of India becomes Buddhist missionary 221 BC Shih Hwang-ti, first emperor of China, begins Great Wall 220 BC Archimedes, Greek mathematician, develops physics and mechanics  218 BC Hannibal leads army from Spain over the Alps to Italy 160 BC Hiparchus develops trigonometry 78 BC Julius Caesar begins his climb to rule over the Roman empire 63 BC Cicero compiles record of Roman life 38 BC Horace, Roman poet, writes classic satires 30 BC Virgil writes Aenied 27 BC Caesar Augustus becomes first Roman emperor 58 BC Jesus of Nazareth, Christian leader is born 32 AD Saul of Tarsus begins early Christian missionary work105 AD Tsai Lun invents paper manufacture 132 AD Bar-Kokhba leads Roman revolt and makes Israel independent

About Our Future

10-9-98  F 11:38 AM
Lunchtime at Wilshire Hill.  Nyah brought a box of See's chocolate-covered almonds and caramel.  I ate four or five of them.  It's hot today.  Shirelle wants to know if I want to go bowling with her and friends tonight.  Things seem bad again.  This morning in bed, she said, "johnz, tell me one good thing about our future."
I said, "Tomorrow's Saturday and we don't have to go to work."
My debts still own me.  What else?  An old Portuguese writer won the Nobel for literature.  Jose Saramago.  I've done nothing today and haven't felt like it.  I haven't read the paper.  Haven't typed.  Haven't studied.  Haven't cared.  What else?  The Yanks are on tonight.  I wouldn't mind having a smoke when I get home.  What else?  What else?  How many times can I write "What else?"  Maybe we'll hear the story Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain after this.  George Washington was president from 1789 to 1797.  He ran unopposed both terms.  His vice president, John Adams, succeeded him, but only lasted one term.  In 1801, Jefferson took office for two terms.  He purchased the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon and dispatched Lewis and Clark to have a look.  James Madison took office in 1809.  The War of 1812 flared up during his term.  During that war, The Battle of New Orleans was won by Andrew Jackson AFTER the Treaty of Ghent was signed.  In 1817, James Monroe won the election, and established his doctrine against European aggression in the Americas (We'd handle all the aggression ourselves, thank you).  Eight years later, John Q. stepped in for a term before Andrew Jackson was swept into office and ruled from 1829 to 1837.  His VP, Martin Van Buren, became the eighth president, but lasted only four years before Willaim Henry "Old Tippecanoe" Harrison took office in 1841 and died a month later.  Tyler "Too" ascended to the Oval Office, but was voted out after one term in favor of Polk and his war against Mexico, but after one term, one of Polk's generals, Zachary "Rough and Ready" Taylor won the election, but died of a heart attack while in office.  Some suspect foul play.  His body was exhumed in 1991, but arsenic tests proved negative.  His Veep, Millard Fillmore finished out his term, but lost the office to Benjaman Franklin Pierce, followed by Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, and Hayes.

10-8-98 12:45 PM Th
A teenager at Taco Bell noticed the same thing I had:  A woman there had a nice rack.  "How old are you?" he asked her.
"Twenty-four," she told him.
"Damn," he said, "you look pretty good for a twenty-four-year-old."
"Thanks," she said, and I laughed.
6:20
Now I'm at my night school.  I finished The Sportswriter while I walked here.  It's funny.  I used to worry about that walk down the mean streets of Pico and Crenshaw, especially if I was wearing a tie.  I figured I was a sure target, just asking to be mugged.  I walked alert to any signs of danger, but now I hardly look up from my book, other than to check for cars when I step off the curb to cross streets,  At night, the street lamps light up the page; for only a second or two is it too dark to read as I pass out of the glow from one street light to the next.  The book protects me.  It wards off evil.  People see a holy man walking the street.  I've been hailed as "Reverend" and "Good Christian" by people whom seem to think I'm reading a Bible while I walk. 
Grant Loud from "Jeopardy" called.  Now they want me next Tuesday.  Lahdeedah.  I talked to Peachtree today.  I said I'd ride the train down to Oceanside to golf.  He said that way I won't have to drive in traffic and I'll already be drunk when I get there.  Not to mention the fact that my car wouldn't make it to the end of the driveway, let  alone Carlsbad.  My teeth hurt.  What else?  I have to write to my folks in Idaho when I get home.  I get to pick a new book to read.  Should I read Independence Day, the sequel to The Sportswriter?  Or maybe Last of the Mohicans or maybe some Krakauer?  Or maybe I should just read non-fiction, history and science to prep for Jeop  Who knows?  Who cares?  I'll be out of here in about fifteen minutes.  I ought to rethink my whole adult-teaching method.  It sure would be great if I did as well as Andrew did yesterday.  Then I could quit this job and write at night.  What else?  Haven't smoked for a while.  I have a headache today.  Looks like I'll be studying this week.  Debt Debt Debt.  I can't think of anything else.  Maybe when I get home, after I finish my letter, I can finish this.