The Trifling Blog

Peter peter pumpkin eater took a test, and was a cheater. Hi, I am Peter. I am here today with an essay about the CBEST or California Basic Educational Skills Test. First, just let me say….OMG.

Because I have had the great good fortune to have been a teacher for several years, I thought that I might want to return to that honored profession here in California. To that end, I found my way to the offices of the Santa Barbara City Schools – several months back to inquire about credentialing to teach as a substitute. I was told that I would have to have a passing score on the CBEST, and submit to a background test. I said: “No problemo” (The Terminator) and got online to register for what would be an interesting experience – test wise.

For those of you that know me…language is my strong suit. Math…well it is my short suit. Lord Fauntlaroy short. Once again I have to give a shoutout to my brutha Nosmo King who spent an exceptionally long summer with me between 10th and 11th grades re-taking HS algebra. Yes, we were a band of math challenged bruthas. But I digress. On with the story.

I took the CBEST several months ago, and scored (as you might imagine) very well on both the comprehension and composition portions of the test. Then, there was the math portion. I pooched.

So, I got back in line and re-registered to take the test again. Apparently, you can re-test an infinite number of times to retake the test until…by hook or by crook you are able to pass. Ah, here’s the rub. There are folks who take the test 3, 4, 5, 6 times just to pass and qualify to teach in the California Schools. Let us observe a moment of silence after this remark….

Now, I am not one to talk, cause as I have mentioned I totally pooched the math portion of the test. Having said that: I did the honorable thing. I Re-up’d like a marine looking for a second tour of Afghanistan (well, maybe that is a stretch) to take the math portion again. Yesterday, I took the test.

I think I did OK. The test wasn’t really difficult, and this time, I prepared long and hard. I even purchased several sample tests online, and worked diligently for hour after hour on them. I was ready. I had my number 2 pencils, and my fat pink eraser. I had read the directions completely and showed up ahead of the appointed hour.

I had worked late the nite before, and woke bleary eyed to follow my Google directions to Carpenteria High School where the ree doo was to be administered. I arrived there, and sat in my car going over my algebra notes….hoping that I would be able to shift my brain into math-mode. We will see if I succeeded and we’ll report on the results…but that just brings us to the title of this essay: Cheaters, never prosper.

There was an information desk set up at the high school, ostensibly manned by friendly folk who were there to direct you to the classroom where your particular seat was. It was a ruse. They were Nazis. One in particular – I am sure her name must have been Helga, said in a harsh tone – “Sir, you will have to remove your hat to take the test”. This gave me pause. I responded, after a brief pause: “Huh?” She reiterated: “You cant wear your ball cap during the test”.

Again, those of you who know me, can only imagine the look on my face at this remark. Of course I had to query: “Huh?” To which she replied: “You might have written test answers on the inside of the brim of your hat which would allow you an unfair advantage”. I passed a gall stone.

I looked at her, with a broken blood vessel in my eye (which she had caused) and said very simply and succinctly: “Madam, this is a randomized test. I know for a fact that there are no fewer than 10 distinctly different version of the test that are passed out in each classroom to avoid the most remote chance that someone could cheat. Add to this, the fact that I am a myopic 53 year old man who cant even see the inside of the brim of my cap. Add to this the idea that I am a person of great integrity and would never cheat on such an important test.” She looked at me like I was a Martian. Perhaps I am.

And we wonder about the teachers that are responsible for the future of our country and our world.

I invite our legislators to take this test Perhaps even President O; To experience this screening. But, with respect, I suggest you leave your ball caps at home. Pax-Out.

For the past several months, I have found respite in a tiny little cafe in Santa Barbara California that has been selling wholesome food to the nuts and berries crowd since 1978. This oasis in the confusion is called the Sojourner Cafe. My experience there has been exquisitely revealing.

What I have discovered is profound. It has to do with Karma and the reversal of Karmic interest. The Karmic interests that I refer to are most probably not my own, but rather, like karmic lint have been clinging to me as I have made my own sojourn across the planet. No surprise I suppose, the name of this way station – the sojourner.

I believe that at a very basic genetic level, recorded in each person’s genetic material are certain events both local and global which directly effect that individual’s karma. In essence, not only are we paddling upstream in the viscus fluid of our own karmic making but we are trying to move our karmic kanoe through a veritable morass of everyone else’s shite. Yep you heard it right. And there’s simply no telling what karmic lint you have accumulated in your journey. It is uniquely yours. However….we are all well served to remember (as bipeds on this tiny spinning planet) that not only what we do….but what other’s do…can get on us…and in us. In effect, the price we must pay is not strictly speaking of our own making.

This brings me to the Soj. After a lifetime of tumbling around in the clothes-dryer of the universe without so much as a lint trap or a dryer sheet….I found myself covered with negative karma. Not only were the voices in my head constantly negative, but the voices in THEIR heads were negative as well. (props to Doug for that one). I had been steering a course away from the very thing that I needed to point the bow into – my own sadness, my own darkness, my own sorrow, my own pain and my own neglect. And it was very simple. I needed to Karmically course correct. I needed the SOJ. I had to give up the vanity project that my life had become, and become a servant. I needed to be a maî⋅tre d’ A waiter.

Karmic repairs done while you wait….

Spending a lifetime pushing back against life every time that life would push me; taught me the wrong lesson. Even when doing so resulted in cancer and my own mortal realization….I still insisted on pushing back. Then came the SOJ. Being a servant is not something that you can do and push back. In fact, just the opposite is true. You have to accept the pushing. Gently guide it without it effecting you. Redirect the negative energy and return a smile. Positive to replace negative. Which is…after all the very nature of physics, of magnetism and electromechanical force.

I have been waiting to write this addition to the Trifling Blog, because I have needed time for the right words to settle. Like silt at the bottom of the tank. For those of you who have never worked in the service industry – I highly recommend it. It could save your life. More importantly, it could save your soul. And course correct your karma.

Namaste

The Sandman’s name is Scott.

He lives on the second leg of my daily bike ride. This is my Myrtle journey (for those of you that have been not been following the Trifling Blog since my arrival in Santa Barbara) begins a mi casa, and goes to the beach and back. It takes the place of my morning run – for lots of reasons. First, when I was in high school my first love was biking. I biked to school every day. Second, I am 52 years old and my knees have given out. This means that biking is far preferable to running as an aerobic exercise.

So, 3 miles of daily run have translated into 12 miles of daily bike. But I digress.

The Sandman. Every day on the second leg of my journey – sojourn (a shameless plug for my employer: www.sojournercafe.com) I run into the sandman parked in the sand at the corner of beach and Cabrillo. Carbrillo is a street. Beach, is a big ass body of water. But I digress.

Daily sojourn. Second leg. Beach. There, that brings us back. I encounter the sandman. He has been carving sandsculptures in the same spot for over 20 years.

He and I are about the same age. Every day, I stop and put a tip in his jar. He and I talk about visual art. He smokes a cigarette that I wish I could smoke. We consider the folds of drapery and the concept of ciaro scuro in sand sculpture.

He has kids. 11 and 12 mine are older.  But kids are universal. They make us part of the same fraternity. Art does the rest. I talk to him about the movement of the sculpture. He tells me I am full of shit. Life is good. Then, I shill as a passerby looks on, and Scott tells them that his art cant exist without their tips. He needs help marketing. I am about to intervene. In the interim I look at the tourists and tell them that I have already put five bucks in the jar. And indeed I had.

So, as I sit there thinking about how I can increase The Sandman’s tips and my own….I came upon an idea that is going to require some additional research. Living sand sculpture. Stay tuned for more on that. Thanks to Cary Travanovich for the inspiration and the introduction to mime. All things are connected. All things.

Lots of love to my peeps out there. Shout out to my kids at the Milburn Stone. Hope all is good.  Peace out.

The regular readers of the Trifling blog don’t usually encounter political commentary from the owner/publisher. This is because I am typically a-political. Not that I don’t have positions or opinions, but like football, I have never developed a penchant for watching either of these spectator sports. My roommate however, as well as being a snappy dresser and fine musician, can occasionally be called upon for some pretty spectacular repartee. In the case of this submission, he was responding via email to a friend of his who is less than an adherent of the current POTUS. He was suggesting that the POTUS was disingenuous about his knowledge of and participation in the church of the right Rev. Wright. Here is my roommates unabridged response:

Having been in regular, weekly church attendance (save for a few years, Europe, etc…), albeit professionally, since the age of 17 (my first church job, while a student), I feel more than qualified to speak to the broader actualities of the “church” experience. To whit, those that deal more with social/political concerns than theological/religious ones. To assume that the many in church are there for a God fix, borders on naïveté…

I seriously doubt that Obama was a regular congregant. I would conjecture that his belonging to that specific congregation is much more of a Black/Chicago/Oprah/political/networking decision, than a traditional epiphany. Obama is rather a denizen of the black community. This and many other crucial (to any reasonable understanding of the man) aspects of his history and life are lost on most white americans, who much like their “colored” brethren, cannot see much beyond obvious pigmentation differences and lamentably misconstrue them with cultural attributes. Obama was raised by a white mother and, more specifically, white grandparents, in a predominantly white culture. All of this carping about him is nothing more than the ravings of delusional people long disenfranchised, whose pusillanimous character is easily manipulated, with fear, by the very people they should, in actuality, be bitching about.

Guess who’s coming to dinner? Bootiesatva. And unless you inventory your pets and children they are fair game. Not that he will consume them, but….he might. I know this look. It is both hunger, and not. As all looks are, it is a tell. A specter. A foreshadow. Bootiesatva has a cousin named Chipper. He has this look too. All the time. Dig it.

Me personally? I think a brutha goin through his Zappa phase. So, “woe-is-be” to any musicians that may encounter this fiddleplayer cum bel canto singer. Be ready. The visage is serious as is the man. If you haven’t been to the page: insert shameless promotion here: http://www.lunagitana.com/LunaGitana.html

And no posting featuring my roommate and childhood friend would be complete without a picture of his pit bull. Shout-out to Lucy.

Yes, she is marked very much like a milk cow. Go ahead. I dare ya.

The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Everyone in the Good Ol’ USofA has a gramma that was the “pie” gramma. This gramma is the keeper of the secrets of baking. This was the gramma that stood at the kitchen counter when we were kids and using nothing but a rolling pin and air (as far as we knew) baked delicacies fit only for kings and kids. Thankfully we were the later.

Zoom forward a few dozen years, and you find yourself in Santa Barbara on the west sah-eed.

Which brings us at long last to the title of this entry – Gramma Laura. She would have been right at home here. She would have been among the keepers of the secret of the grain. (Not brewers) She would have spoken the universal language of crust and cake, of rising and dusting, of sifting and kneading.

For weeks now, as I have sallied forth on UnterMyrtle (my bike) on my morning ride, I have passed by a Mexican bakery. All this time, I have been gathering my gringo courage. Today, I found my strength and my conviction. I walked into the panadería as if I knew exactly what the hell I was doing. Of course I didn’t.

OMG! Which as we all know is the Spanish abbreviation for Optimally Magnificent Goodies.

But I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. Even though I have been studying my Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons – I had not progressed so far that I felt comfortable ordering pastries from a panadería. Let me tell you…no es una problema. One of the wonderful things about being a Spanish speaking person, is that – you are probably much smarter than your American cohorts, and you speak English too! There should be a lesson in that. But, I digress. What you need to know is that the lovely peeps at this lovely panadería were fluent enough for all. They directed me to the pastries they thought I would find most delicious. And with the help of an elderly Mexican gentleman, I selected even a few more….

And the point of this rambling sentence? None really. I’m too stuffed. Too satisfied to type another word. Let’s just say “wow”. Gramma Laura would have been proud.

Pax – Out

When I was a young man: a new father in fact; my father-in-law said to us one day:” We should sally forth, to the land of my birth in search of the holy grail”. I knew that his cause was just, and his honor true.

Being but a squire at the time, I attended my master and saw to his needs; For I knew this was a journey of great import. We were in search of the great Chicken Fried Steak.

Away we went, launched from the tepid shores of Southern California, on our way to the hinterlands of the Texas panhandle – the place of origins…the beginnings. The Australopithecian beginnings of the CFS. Chicken Fried Steak. We sought the Lucy of CFS, and would have none of the posers along the way.

Diner after diner we tried. Restaurant after hole in the wall did we patronize. Until, at last we gave up.

There’s only so much Chicken Fried Steak you can eat before you long for a salad or a baked potato.

Which leads me to a minor story of a similar bent. Since I arrived in Santa Barbara I have been on the quest for the perfect fish taco. One would think, that the fish taco would be a mainstay of the diet here in the Barbara, but alas, it is not the case.

So, where in fact did you find the grail? The thronging masses ask? Mia Cucina is the answer. Come to find out, the best cookin’ is home cookin’. Fresh red snapper. Onion, Garlic, Cilantro, Chiles, a little olive oil and some fresh tortillas from the corner bodega later…..voila! The best fish tacos in Santa Barbara. If you are in the neighborhood, stop by. I will throw a few together for ya. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Once in a decade or so, an image so impacts me, that it feels like there is a physical weight on my chest. An example  would be the  little girl in the Shake and Bake commercial from the 60’s -  “And I helped”.  It was just such a weird and twisted image. Betty Crocker had gone terribly wrong. Over and over again, the networks played it. Even in my 10 year old world, the word on the street was: This was seriously twisted- and no one knew why.

Now, in my wisdom years, I understand why. The little girl was an alien. She simply was not from this planet, but some other relatively accessible sphere that has been monitoring us. And so it goes.

They took X-files of the air for a reason. I submit as evidence the above picture. At first, just a harmless Yahoo Mail ad banner. But then…insidiously…infiltrating my dreams…then my waking hours…Like some evil Jim Carrey or Jim Varney or some other evil Jim….Jimmy Crak Korn…Hell, I don’t know.

The point is this. There is something about this young man’s face that is just disturbing. Otherworldly. Which give one pause to ask:

Did the advertisers know this, and chose to use this image because they knew it was just so freaky-deaky that lots of folks would feel oogie, and then buy their product. OR,

Am I the only one that finds this visage slightly warped, looney, wacky, funhouse and disturbing?

Just another post from the editors at the Trifling Blog for your amusement and bemusement. Pax out.

As a writer, I am often wont to do a little research before I flesh out a concept or narrative. In this particular case, I got in my cyber-car and drove over to WIKI with a query on the origins of “Scotch” in scotch tape. This is just the word that I find myself using when I need an invisible self adhesive tape. “Say, do you happen to have any Scotch tape?” – You know what I mean.

Having located the junk drawer and found the Scotch tape, I was able to pin up the following email on my bedroom wall. Now, you have to understand that I am not an individual ordinarily given to pinning random pieces of paper up on my bedroom walls. I (as all friends will attest) have a serious case of OCD. In fact, a disorder. But in this case, when I received the email – I printed it and stuck it to the wall using my favored adhesive – Scotch tape. Following is the email from a dear friend…

“Well you lost your swing… We got to go find it… Now it’s somewhere… in the harmony… of all that is… All that was… All that will be… ~Bagger Vance
Happy birthday D, I’m hoping that this next journey around the sun concludes the search for that allusive swing… Love you!!!”

Sometimes, friends are closer to you, than you are to yourself.