After work on Valentine's Day, I'm wheeling the Jeep from the parking lot and notice an adorable little black squirrel who is obviously a baby and so cute the way it stops, front paws spread-eagle, before crossing the street. I think, good baby-squirrel, stay on the corner. But then the stupid little fucker goes for it, as happens. I leave it to chance b/c usually this works, the timing is somehow the best odds for miraculously escaping all four tires happens when I drive straight rather than swerving. When you swerve, you throw off mothernature. Not so in this case as BF Goodrich snubs half its little body, acknowledged in the tiny thud. In my rearview mirror I see his death dance, which is similar to a chicken w/ its head chopped off, except double-time sped up, and the whole show broadcast rattling and thumping from his tail. Apparently he is only partially mashed into the pavement b/c of the way he is stuck in a tight, flashing circumference w/ tail thrashing at Chipmunks speed. I'm annoyed the car behind me swerves. For a second I think about swinging around and running over the little bugger again, to finish it, but need to make 101 as traffic to SF mounts by the minute. Then I consider pulling over, running back, and braining him w/ The Club. Next thing I know it's in my past. At first I worry it's my late Papa reincarnate, but then I rationalize if that's the case I did him a favor.

So you're wondering where's the karma? A few hours later a dog bit my face. Her bottom fang hooked my right nostril and tore entirely through as she pulled away, leaving a Nile Delta, "Y" wound, which bled profusely. The upper teeth landed between my eyes and also punctured, but the eyesore's the three flaps where my nostril was once together, now resembling a plate-tectonic disaster. Around 5:30 AM in rearview mirror all I see is a blood-caked Jackson Pollock number.

Friday evening after work I spend four hours in Urgent Care w/ Silicon Valley's dregs. On the form they require a reason for my visit. "Dog bite to face," but I consider putting "Karma."

I knew. I just knew. After our second night together -- we were in San Francisco -- I mentioned how it wasn't going to work. Once you've realized this, you can relax, ride it out, indulge whatever else comes your way, and move on. Except I didn't because she said she could change. Here lies the risk between wisdom and the rut, the same damn mistake, the unbroken pattern, to act on your insight and make a break for it instead of getting lured in and fucked up yet again. I was this close to finally achieving maturity. I knew better than to take it seriously, to take her seriously. Just have some fun. Why not? You've come clean. You told her how you feel. I should have listened to myself and sure as hell never to her, especially after my fair and accurate assessment of our future. That loud, throaty, god-awful laugh was rough enough from such a pretty blonde, but it couldn't have been clearer that she was bat shit crazy. I reached my conclusion after dinner as I made myself comfortable on our plush white bed at the Marriott.

Called Bernie to tell him about the Dee Dee King LP.  He's on the train to JFK.  Had 10 hour layover today and saw his bro and sweet Carola.  We get cut off.  He texts:  "no time to talk.  D Johan's on my flight!  no shit!"

I reply.  "Buster Poindexter!"

"yes"

"thaza good sign, my friend"

Messages when you turn on your phone somehow make a world's difference, sometimes.

On a rainy night after burgers & beers at Frankie’s Bohemian Café on Divisadero, we arrive just after the doors open to claim seats in the stage left balcony box á la Statler and Waldorf.  Of course Hunter crossed my mind as we walked past the O’Farrell, a depressing thought considering the dire straits everyday people are facing not to mention how easy it seems life can turn terminal.  Can depression actually make you more humane?  I feel sorry, for what I’m unsure, but I realize it’s getting to me when I picture everything’s infancy and suffering, which of course makes our seats perfect for people watching.  The sold-out crowd, mostly white Gen-Xers but more girls than expected, is Stephen Malkmus’, an obvious long-standing, loyal following.  Not only am I the only person wearing a ball-cap, but I’m probably the only one of these 600 concert-goers who has never seen SM live.  Yes, I’m ashamed, but at least tonight I’m doing something about it.  I suppose Rainy’s on my mind anyhow b/c he’s having a kid and especially the news last week of his band, Morning 40 Federation, dissolving, but I can’t help recalling the first night he stepped on a stage at the Blue Note in Columbia for an open mic, lanky and featherbrained, someone who makes you smile, as SM humbly ambles on to set up.  On all fours, he’s moving pedals around like an electric train set.  Tonight is solo acoustic, and we’re hoping he uses the hulking hunk of ‘70s plastic of a drum machine which looks like an original cable TV box or the very first electric blanket controller w/ pastel pushbuttons.  After haphazardly tossing his coat and bad ‘80s eyeglasses, his skinny frame beneath a terrycloth Penguin polo gives this look of a Revenge of the Nerds extra.  He’s sporting Adidas running shoes except they’re not a matching pair (one is obviously more used).  Already the stage is set for what is to become ground zero Hurricane Malky.

W/ MacBook serving as his set list and Corona in hand, the fun begins.  Cheeks is right:  SM must owe someone a solid at Noise Pop b/c rarely do you see an artist so unprepared and painfully unrehearsed.  Don’t get me wrong.  I enjoy train wrecks.  Who doesn’t?  Just about halfway through, during “Real Emotional Trash” (probably his longest song) while not even playing hard, he breaks the E string and works the breaking news into a refrain that he not only broke one but didn’t bring extras.  It’s a helpless sight when he cuts short and lunges for his guitar case to fruitlessly rifle out of desperation.  (Rainy’s first night at the Blue Note back in ’96 he broke a string, too, and handled it w/o leaving the stage.)  Fortunately an abundance of musicians are in attendance, and before you know it, packages of strings and other gear shower the stage from every direction.  He takes the first set handed to him and extracts the wrong string.  Someone even says, “Not that one!”  There’s an Amish kid w/ an overtly bushy beard sans ‘stache who is stalkerish in teeth-grinding enthusiasm along w/, ironically, a kid next to him who has a mustache and is trying at every opportunity to hand SM a burnt CD from the spindle in his backpack, both of whom contribute to self-proclaimed nervousness of a knee-knocked, fawnlike singer on the floor w/ mic pulled down while he strings the wrong string and then plays “Loretta’s Scars” before the prior artist offers up his Gibson.  SM mouths, Good idea.  The Amish kid is such a distraction we (in the peanut gallery) feel like benefactors of a serenade as our singer does everything he can, including turning his back to this freak, to hold concentration.  Apparently the Amish only know the solo material as he intermittently shrieks like a girl while asphyxiating himself w/ both hands, dramatically covering his mouth and eyes as if he’s about to faint, and busting lip-sync, center stage, James Brown dance moves.  God I’m embarrassed for him, SM, and everybody in the vicinity.  Pressed against the stage barrier of bar tables, he’s impossible to ignore, which annoys me even more b/c I can’t help it.  I shouldn’t be so critical.  After all, the kid’s happy as a clam w/ a plastered smile.

So many catcalls, you gain respect for his songbook.  But I didn’t think he’d do any Pavement, and I’d guess it’s been since their ’99 breakup b/c he needs a minute each time to figure how to play it again.  As lines are flubbed it doesn’t matter b/c the hall is a sing-along love-in, a starved and adoring base who knows what a tremendous treat this is.  Towards the end, after a mesmerizing run from “Shoot the Singer,” “Zurich is Stained,” to “Heaven is a Truck,” he gives up during one of my favs, “Vanessa from Queens,” which does sound like shite.  I love these songs, all of ‘em, and it’s like a dream when he finishes w/ “Here.”  For an encore, I’m not surprised by the O’Jays cover, “Love Train.”  I’d read that a couple weeks ago in Nashville at a “secret show” celebrating Bob Nastanovich’s marriage, Malkmus the goofball that he is played the wedding singer bit.  He takes a swing at “Emotional Rescue,” complete w/ Jagger falsetto, but gives up by saying, “All right, enough of that.  How about ‘Summer Babe’?”  Our perched view is revealing:  we can see his signature licks.  Cheeks is impressed by the clean breaks and ample thumb fretting.  I’m tickled when it’s time for the song’s guitar freak-out … he throws in the towel and says, “This song doesn’t work acoustic.”  For the noisy finale, the crowd in unison urges him to step on his orange box w/ a button that looks like a tack.  Toying w/ us, he finally brings down the house.  It’s glorious!

The stage is littered impressive, strings strewn everywhere, an empty beer, and aftermath of lots of love & talent.  It’s interesting I only drank two beers.  Everything’s so depressing lately, all the doomsday news piling on daily, hearing about real problems hitting close to home, wishing I still had my dad for his take which would inevitably give me strength, so much so that sobriety is preferred during no-fun loneliness.  Company is good writing, and maybe red wine, too.  Well, and music.  After midnight, in the pouring rain, I skip the city, southbound 101, w/o doors so that I’m practically flying the Spirit of St. Louis, having to peer out the side to see the road ahead.  I want home and my bed, a glass of red wine, and to curl up w/ Trout Fishing in America before my sleep tonight.  Tomorrow’s another day.