When Christmas trees grow up

Back in February of 1997 I asked Darian to find a good home for my little Norwegian pine that had fulfilled its duty as our holiday centerpiece. She planted it near the edge of the field bounding the south and west flanks (respectively) of Kresge and Porter colleges at UCSC (University of California at Santa Cruz). I didn’t half-think the little thing would survive but the bugger has flourished — so much so that it’s now visible from space! Check it out:

Latitude: 36°59′44.82″N
Longitude: 122° 4′2.26″W

Over the past decade I’ve stopped by the field during the several occasions I’ve found myself back in the area. You know, to pay a visit. The biggest shock came in 2003 after I’d just come back from Japan; I hadn’t seen the tree in years and when I went to where I knew it should be I couldn’t find it. That’s because I was looking for a sapling that had since grown several meters in height.

I’ve heard rumors that UCSC’s unbridled expansion will eventually spill over into the field, gobbling up Darian’s garden and possibly my tree, as well. Hold tight, friend, and if that dark day does come, make them curse it as they struggle to rip your deep roots free of the earth!

It came from the shower drain…

Warning: this is a disgusting — albeit environmentally friendly — tip.

As time goes by, the water in our shower tends to drain more slowly as hair begins to accumulate in the pipe below. I sheathe our drain plate with the webbed netting that garlic or onions sometimes come in, and while that catches the majority of offending hairs, it certainly does not get everything.

Now, I really don’t like the idea of relying on chemical gels to deal with clogs because 1) they’re more of a band-aid than a true fix, and 2) I only turn to chemicals as a last resort when it comes to most anything, really.

So, the other day as I was scrubbing myself in an inch of standing water, I got the idea to employ our toilet plunger since we’re basically dealing with the same kind of problem, if you think about it. However, rather than push the clog down through the plumbing, my enthusiastic “suction” stroke forced the pipe to cough up a fist-sized hairball just oozing with the most revolting, black, foul-smelling sludge. It scared the hell out of me at first and a second later caused me to gag. Still, it was mentally satisfying to see that mass come up. Really satisfying.

My suggestion: the next time you find yourself dealing with a clogged drain, go for your handy dandy plunger first — though if you want to avoid being traumatized, try plunging away for a few seconds rather than giving a single “up, up, and away” stroke as I did. You’ll sleep better for it.

Lucky we live Hawaii

It’s easy to forget what an incredibly beautiful place Hawaii can be and, indeed, is. I often get so wrapped up in my work that it becomes easy to overlook the beauty around (especially being in the city). Just look at these photos, all from last Friday’s Honolulu Advertiser.

This one of the whale shark off Maui is breathtaking. The fish remained in this position and allowed divers to come in close for grooming. This is almost the same depth that Yumi and I were snorkeling in when the humpback (that we somehow didn’t see) swam right past us. I’m determined to return to Maui each and every winter until I get spun around in a whale’s wake. Then I can die. You can forget that swimming-with-dolphins baloney. (link to more photos)

The last photos are equally stunning. These guys took their paddleboards right up to lava flow happening on Big Island and stared directly into the face of Pele. Amazing. (link to story)

Thank you for flying, Aloha

With the sudden announcement of Aloha Airlines’ bankruptcy at the end of March, Hawaii lost its oldest airline (61 years) and Aloha’s employees lost their jobs (1,900 and counting). Not to make light of this event, but all the news coverage got me thinking about my own fictitious airline that I based on Aloha: Paradise Air.

When Grandma and Grandpa took us kids to Hawaii in the early 80s, we used to play a game whereby each of us would stake out a corner of our hotel room and set up shop. Todd, Andy, Jenny, and myself had each created a “business” that we’d operate to barter with the others for goods and services. Kid-o-nomics. (I think somebody had a carnival, which was fairly ambitious.)

My great idea was to provide transportation to and from all corners of the room on a fleet of paper airplanes I christened Paradise Air. I still happen to have one these planes (number 22, the “Mighy Mo”!), and here she is. I guess part of me always wanted to be a pilot.

Saturday, March 14, 2008 (London)

6:30 a.m. The phone rings. I’m still asleep and half think I may be dreaming. The answer-phone picks up as Tom flashes into the living room without a stitch of clothing on. Whoa — good morning. It’s Claire. She says that Rick died only a few hours ago. He and Cherie were at home watching a movie together when it happened. Jesus. Everybody is now up, dealing with the hour and getting tea made.

I ask Mom where I might be able to go study later on. (?) Like that’s going to happen. Mom phones Claire, then Cherie. Listen intently through my first two cups of tea. Mom puts me on the phone for a minute so she can run to the bathroom. Cherie is extremely distraught and still in shock. When the police arrived they treated the apartment as a murder scene, and her as a suspect. “The world just keeps kicking you.” She’s worried that Rick died feeling like some kind of bookmark.

Fry up some rare Cumberland sausage for breakfast sandwiches. Stuart drops by with the cat. Tom shows him in and Mom attends to the business of the revolving loan that sees him through until the next check arrives Mom says they go through this little song and dance a couple of times every month.

Jim rings up (4:30 a.m. Illinois time), wanting to know what the hell has happened because of all the messages on his machine. He calls Cherie and we don’t hear back from him for the rest of the day.

Tom keeps inquiring if I’ve downloaded my photos — his way of asking to see the pictures and even try downloading his own from Paris. Show Mom how to use iPhoto. She loves it. Transfer photos of Ian’s belongings from Mom’s old PC. She tells me the story of what happened when he died, and how she learned so much about him at the funeral from all the “aging queens”. Mom and Tom look at their photos from Paris, creating a slideshow set to music (which they think is pretty cool).

Start to play Myst V: End of Ages with Mom. She’s having fun. Later on, Tom and I begin to dismantle Mom’s old laptop in search of the hard drive. Damn thing is buried. Mom says she’s sad to see it go after all these years. Her “moose”, too. (Mouse)

Mom and Tom pop out to do their Saturday errands and I head off for a run in Burgess Park. Beautiful day. Many scattered pick-up games of football (soccer) going on, mostly immigrants. These guys are having a lot of fun and I think of Kabi; I feel bad for not returning his call.

After returning, I stretch, shave, and wash up in Mom’s “shower”, which is more akin to a drip-irrigation system. Start a video chat with Yumi just before Mom and Tom return; they’re happy to see her again. Marie is busy preparing for her Baptism and Victor’s arrival. She also doesn’t want to see me leave HELP for NICE.

Mom dictates an email to Tony and has me send it off. She and Tom then have a lie-down for about an hour. I catch a few winks myself on the couch after starting to caption some of our trip photos on Flickr.

Clarie comes over with the last of her apple pie. It’s not at all uncomfortable to see her this time. We talk for a while in the living room. before Tom wakes up and stumbles out to make tea, followed shortly thereafter by Mom. Order a couple of pizzas from Pizza Hut. Mom gives the Claire the bag of dried Swedish Bitters. They’re both raving so much about them that I try a spoonful of the ready-made syrup; it really does have a turn-of-the-century taste to it.

I ask Claire if she’s been in touch with Jean. (We’d been talking about her the day before. Mom was telling me the story of what a lovely day she had when Jean came to visit, and the two of them took a day trip by boat down the Thames.) In trying to sort out who Jean now works for, Claire tells of asking Jean a long time ago about her employers before coming to work for Cherie. She was with Dean Martin for a year, but her favorite has always been Dudley Moore. We’re thinking she may have come with him from England to L.A. Tom launches into the chorus of an old song he did with Peter Cook, “Good-Byeeeeeeiiiiiii”. I’ve got it on YouTube less than a minute later. Mom is amazed at how fast I’ve been pulling up information on the Web (such as the answer to her wondering if the “@” sign did not appear on keyboards until the advent of email — which isn’t the case: it debuted on the 1902 Lambert typewriter).

Todd Skypes us and the kids are bouncing off the walls. Mom is really pleased with how well the video chatting is working out so far. Todd tells a story of when he and Kate were staying with Michael years ago when he still lived over on John Ruskin street. Todd had picked up a pair of knee-high Doc Martens at the market and was wearing them when he stepped out for a smoke on Michael’s balcony. When Michael asked why he was outside, Todd answered that he didn’t want to get smoke in the flat. Michael said he’d rather live with a smoke-filled room than have Todd on the balcony in those boots, looking like a male prostitute. Oh man, I’d never heard that before. We were all dying.

Claire phones her mom, apologizes repeatedly for not being able to come sooner. She pleads with Cherie to eat something and go spend some time with Rick’s cousins. Claire hands the phone over to Mom. Grandpa wasn’t very sympathetic when Cherie called to tell him the news. Claire, Tom, and I are quiet as Mom talks to her. I’m impressed with how compassionate yet composed and straight-up Mom is when speaking to Cherie. Claire seemed much more unsure of herself, as I know I did.

After the call Tom is upset with Mom for suggesting that Rich go Albuquerque to stay with Cherie until Claire arrives. He’d only have bigger troubles waiting for him later at home. Mom knows he’s right, didn’t know what she was thinking.

Claire then calls her dad, and the phone is passed to Mom and then to me. Rich says he feels bad about the long-overdue email he owes me about his old bike. Says he’s waiting until he can give a quality response. It’s loud wherever he is and I can’t really understand all that he’s saying. He mentions something about reading something on my website (?) — about the death of someone that prompted him to go out and buy some music. “Have you ever heard Serina?” I didn’t quite catch it. “Oh… man!” In any case, Rich seemed happy to say hi to me. I don’t know what I was worried about.

Claire’s pie tastes pretty good.

Walk her down to the bus, which I’d felt bad about not offering to do last time. I’d forgot about her mugging in N.Y. It was dark and wet outside and she was glad to have me do it. The bus whisked her away and that was that. Sorry, Claire, for all the weirdness before. I honestly don’t know what gets into me sometimes.

Still puzzled over Grandpa’s reaction. Cherie says it’s because he was half-asleep when she called. Mom, though, isn’t all that surprised. As Grandpa himself says, he doesn’t give a shit about other people’s problems these days because it’s all he can do to deal with Grandma. Mom says Jim is a more logical choice to go down and stay with Cherie, but he’s busy with work (and otherwise detached) so probably won’t do it. Mom and Claire both agree that Cherie is probably better off staying in New Mexico where there’s sun, though Mom is concerned because Cherie has never done well on her own. I can’t even imagine the hell she’s going through.

As I fall asleep I watch shadow rings playing on the ceiling overhead — a street lamp’s reflection off a puddle down below. Each ring expands outward from a single drop of rain until annihilated by adjacent rings formed fractions of a second later. It happens too quickly to notice, but the dance is beautiful.

What a day.

Ray Rayner: that’s all folks!

This week I’ve turned my attention back to First Forty, a project that’s been on ice since last September. I picked up right where I’d left off, with my short encapsulation on the day’s events from February 22, 1978: namely, that Ray Rayner had revealed the winner of the jelly belly count and… well, that’s about it.

Now, I haven’t thought about Ray in years, but he was an important figure in my life during the 5th and 6th (and possibly 7th) grades, more than I knew at the time. I’d like to take a minute here to remember him.

Seeing Ray’s name again prompted me to do a little sleuthing around the Web, and it wasn’t long before I turned up all sorts of good stuff.

After we moved back to Chicago (Warrenville) in the fall of 1977, I spent most weekday mornings from 7 – 8 in front of the tube with Ray Rayner and Friends on WGN. (I imagine this went on for about two years — at which time I entered junior high and had to leave the house earlier to catch the bus.) Come to think of it now, I was usually up before 7 because I remember watching Orion Samuelson (The Big “O”!) deliver the daily farm report: a mix of agricultural news, weather, the price of pork belly futures and all that jazz. This is what Midwestern kids (used to) grow up with.

For me, Ray was the undisputed king of morning television. (I know now that he’d done a lot of television work in Chicago prior to my time, but Ray Rayner and Friends is how I first came to know him.) Donning a funky jumpsuit — the orange one with the tree-branch appliqués being my favorite — covered in “to do” notes in the pre-Post It era, Ray would wing his way through an hour of classic cartoons; news, weather, traffic, and sports; visits with Dr. Lester Fisher from the Lincoln Park Zoo; disastrous attempts to reproduce the featured arts-and-crafts project; friendly chat sessions with Cuddly Duddley (an over-sized spaniel puppet); and tense “guest appearances” by Chelveston the duck (“Chelvy”), whom would often terrorize Ray, snapping at and chasing him around the studio. Good stuff.

The (aforementioned) jelly-bean count was a contest Ray held annually. He’d fill a jar with jelly beans and have viewers try to guess the amount, all entries to be sent to the station by post-card. One year I brought a scientific approach to the task: I found a jar of approximate size and counted the number of jelly beans required to make a single “layer”; then, multiplying the number of layers I estimated it would take to reach the top of the jar, I arrived at my answer. I don’t think I was even close. So much for science.

(One interesting association I have with Ray is watching his show with nobody else around. Surely this could not have been the case, as other people in the house would have been up and moving about between the hours of 7 and 8. It may be that Dad was already out the door by 7 while Mom tended to sleep in. [I don't recall seeing her most mornings — which was fine, since I loved getting up early and taking care of my own breakfast and lunch, and having the house to myself.] Todd, I think, usually stayed upstairs after he’d got up. I don’t remember him being there with me in front of the television with a bowl of cereal, and I don’t recall ever talking to Todd about Ray. In fact, I don’t think I spoke to anybody about him. It may be that I didn’t want to share Ray. He was like a favorite uncle who never talked down to you, and you got the feeling that there wasn’t anything he’d rather do than slowly welcome in the day together.)

Although there aren’t many video clips of Ray on the Net (copyright being the main obstacle — which has also prevented any DVDs of Ray from being released) I hit the jackpot when I came across FuzzyMemories.tv, a site dedicated to “Classic Chicago Television”. Their “Screening Room” section holds a number of clips from Ray Rayner and Friends, including the last episode that ever aired. I never saw that one — don’t even remember when I stopped watching Ray or hearing that his show was going off the air. So, finding these clips was a real treat. When Yumi went out to dinner with her girlfriends the other night I cozied up to the computer with a glass of wine and teleported back to 1981 (sans the wine), and found myself plunked down on the floor in front of our living room TV.

It’s amazing how the slightest trigger can tap into memories and sensations the brain has long-since filed away and forgotten. I mean, it’s all there. I’m really starting to believe that with the right prompt it should be possible to call-up nearly anything you’ve experienced and registered. I’m finding this especially true with my journals. Stuff I’ve had no need to recall comes back with amazing clarity after reading a few sentences which, in turn, lay a path to where those memories have been stored. But I digress. What I want to say is that hearing Ray’s voice again brings me right back to that place and time, and the warm tingles work their way up my spine to the base of my skull, caressing the back of my head. Watching Ray takes me to my safe place, my bubble.

Even so, it was a little uncomfortable watching some of the clips from Ray’s last show. It’s obvious that he’s not entirely comfortable himself — trying to keep it together but at times letting the heightened emotional impact of the event bleed through. It always irks me that the shows which often get released or otherwise memorialized are the “final” or “20th-anniversary” specials etc., when nothing is as it should be. Most of the time all you really want to see is a run-0f-the-mill, everyday episode. Those are the ones you remember. Thank god there are a few other clips of Ray Rayner and Friends on Fuzzy Memories from the late 70s, when nothing momentous was coming down the pike (and from the time when I would have been watching).

Observations from the here-and-now (and a few other things I’d forgot):

Pacing. Talk about s-l-o-w! Wow. How quickly we forget how our viewing sensibilities have been drastically reconfigured in only a few decades. These days I often find myself watching Turner Classics when I want to relax if only because of the pacing. Remember when cuts between scenes lasted longer than a few seconds? Watching these old clips now of Ray’s show, with it’s lack of background music and gratuitous graphic overlays, is a breath of fresh air.

Budget. Holy cow, Ray Rayner and Friends looks like many public access shows did on cable in the late 80s. And this was WGN — the country’s first “super station”. But you know what? We never cared.

Intelligence. I’d forgot how Ray never “dumbed down” his show, much in the same way that Rocky & Bullwinkle never shied away from biting wit and cutting sarcasm. Ray talked to you like one of his buddies or members the studio crew (whom he collectively referred to as “Chauncey”). The man was funny. Plus, he’d do things like pull gems from the songbook of pop and jazz standards and proceed to murder them on-air, accompanied off-camera by Don Orlando on the Wurlitzer. I love it.

Ray Rayner and Friends also included news, traffic, weather, and sports. In hindsight, I suppose the producers threw these in to add a little “parent appeal”, but why shouldn’t kids like to be clued in as to what was going on, as well? Mom and Dad watched the evening news; I got mine in the morning. (Ray’s traffic updates were always read over the same stock footage of cars stuck in traffic. Classic.) I’d also forgot how Ray’s chalkboard had all the latest college and professional sports scores off to one side. As Merri Dee would read the news and weather I’d try and figure out what teams all the different abbreviations stood for.

And Ray also delighted in trivia, asking questions (primarily to his crew, pulled from a book he kept on hand entitled Super Trivia) that no kid would rightly know the answers to, but you always learned something new and never felt belittled in the process. Take Ray’s last show, for instance. Here are a few of the questions he threw out as part of his “quiz” (c’mon Dad, I know you can do this):

1. What was the real name of The Saint?

Which band or band leader is each of the following singers associated with?

2. Mildred Bailey

3. Rosemary Clooney

4. Dorothy Collins

5. Bing Crosby

6. Doris Day

7. Mike Douglas

8. Bob Eberly

9. Art Carney (yes, he was a vocalist at one time)

10. Fred Astaire

(I didn’t get any of the answers, even now. Wrong generation. But you really need to watch the video clip to see how Ray’s enthusiasm for the material sucks you right in, no matter how obscure. It’s also interesting to note how Ray seems the most relaxed during that final show while reading his trivia questions — it provides a distraction even as the set is being struck around him.)

One last note: when I see and hear Frazier Thomas again I immediately think of my Aunt Jean. There’s just something so “Chicago” about them both

It’s obvious to me now that so much of what Ray did on his show was for himself: all the inside jokes, cultural references, and skylarking with the crew. But you could tell that he was really enjoying himself, and that enthusiasm came right across the airwaves to us, the audience. And rather than feel like an outsider because you didn’t “get” everything Ray said or talked about, his friendly demeanor and easy manner had the opposite effect: because he could just be himself, you felt respected. He wasn’t putting on an act just because there was a kid in the room. And I appreciated that. True, I didn’t get a lot of Ray’s humor, but I knew I would, eventually. I was just happy to be treated as an equal — even if Ray did advise me to take extra precaution on cold days and bundle up before heading off to school

From the Web I learned that Ray left Chicago and did some work in Albuquerque for a while before retiring from television. He passed away on January 21, 2004 in Fort Myers, Florida.

Thanks for everything, Ray. There’ll never be another quite like you.

(link: Fuzzy Memories “Classic Chicago Television)
(link: Ray Rayner on Wikipedia)
(link: Ray Rayner obit)
(link: Ray Rayner on tvparty.com)

(answers to quiz: 1. Simon Templar 2. Mildred Bailey – Paul Whiteman & Red Norvo 3. Rosemary Clooney – Tony Pastor 4. Dorothy Collins – Raymond Scott 5. Bing Crosby – Paul Whiteman 6. Doris Day – Les Brown & Bob Crosby 7. Mike Douglas – Kay Kyser 8. Bob Eberly – Jimmy Dorsey 9. Art Carney – Horace Heidt 10. Fred Astaire – Leo Reisman)