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Tarot on Baker, etc
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 75
News the past weekend.
Saturday, beautiful day and the streets are empty. Nonetheless I head down Baker and set up with a crystal ball and 5 decks of Tarot cards. My outfit, my grey "Andy Warhol" wig and a pair of oversized rave sunglasses with disco balls hanging from the ear.
I should blend in just fine.
I'm immediately pounced upon by a trio of 20-something girls, one 'tips' $15, the other nothing.
They like the "Hermetic" deck, the one who's symbolism is least to my taste.
This is the most popular deck, by far.
Next customer, younger guy, coming off addictions and waiting to start tree-planting. Again, no cash, but I'm not a fan of "Charging" and - really, if you take it as a spiritual practice than any attempts to monetize it become merely simony, and so like it or not I gotta suck it up. Anyways, a beautiful day and I'm meeting people.
One final senior, a proper Grandpa Simpson, he tips $10, then I'm treated to the story of his life..."in 18diddly-odd-seven when I was just a young Man and Napolean was ...." sort of stuff, without end, which brought my hourly revenue down to about 35 cents.
I was saved from this (and would otherwise still be there...) by a text from my daughter, she'd made it to town.
So, find her still wearing my wig and loud glasses, a bag full of tarot cards & props, make the "impression" that has her questioning why she's visited, out with her, make some dinner, catch up.
Sunday with her the same, I try to induce her to go prospecting, but she's heard the tales and isn't leaving town.
This town, at the moment, a ghost town. Nobody around. Baker empty the whole live long day, and you have to wonder where everyone is...soon enough it'll be busy.
Sunday night, turn her on to "Once Upon a Time in the West", by the time Charles Bronson shows up she's hooked, and by the end she has to concede it's a masterpiece. Not even watching it this time (she's watching it on my phone), merely listening to the scant dialogue, the sound effects, the music, leitmotifs, and - it's still a fucking masterpiece.
Monday, the daughter's off, lunch with Cathy (from the Alumni of Unspeakable Trauma), help her to line up some bar supplies, glasses for the golf course, a catch-up glass of wine and then I'm done.
I'm good with a little bit of people, but a little bit can turn into too much pretty quick.
Today, volunteer, the other two ladies I usually work with don't show, and I'm not sure there isn't a bit of fallout from Michael's 'resignation'. And - despite a follow up, no word as to my 'job' and so it's back to the drawing board, this cash thing, and stressing about it, 6 months is more than plenty enough, and I've got to get my thinker on tight and come up with another plan...
The Coulee
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Memory
- Hits: 75
At 12 years old (or thereabouts) we moved from 911 1 St. NW to 1204 Grafton Ave.
As a child it was a big house, huge, main floor, basement (where I'd play with a chemistry set gifted me for Xmas, the copper sulfate and other chemicals packed in test tubes marked with a skull and crossbones), the upper floor (where the bedrooms were) and the attic, converted into a studio by my mother, where she did her sewing, painting, stained glass, etc. I remember pictures she did for myself and my sister, of us as monkeys, and a spread of Burt Reynolds from a Playgirl magazine with my father's picture pasted over the face.
We had a garage and a big yard, the back of which was converted into a garden that I was expected to weed. I remember not being happy about that. One memory, that of finding a large ashen cinder stuck to the side of the garage, pitching a stone at it to discover that it was not a cinder, it was a bat, and it fell to the ground injured and squeaking, we found a broom and put it out of it's misery...I felt terrible.
All the kids in the neighborhood would frequently assemble to play "Kick The Can", and I had graduated from collecting bottles for change to a paper route. One day while delivering papers I discovered a body, but that's a different story...
If you headed North on the street you would arrive in a few short blocks at the outskirts of town, the north edge of which was bounded by the Coulee, a stagnant stretch of water in which we could catch garter snakes, frogs, and - if we were lucky - mud puppies, or salamanders. There were a few poplar trees, in one of which was built a treehouse which we commandeered to our purpose. The treehouse was a childhood secret, and kids would find old girly magazines and we'd look through them, vaguely excited by the taboo nature of them but not really understanding, only that we were not supposed to be looking at them...
Which brings to mind another memory, of a friend who regularly went through his parents night table and came to school with the most incredible and outlandish tales of what he'd found, he had to be making this all up, didn't he?
In a few places the coulee widened, deepened, became a pond, and we'd find wooden old palettes, stuff them full of sticks and twigs, make rafts and pole about upon it like Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn on the Mississippi...
It was the idyll of childhood, only I hated Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in general, and when being unfairly punished for a poor report card or other misbehaviour would walk west upon the railway out of town hoping to catch sight of the mountains, only returning when I realized the grim reality that I was a long way from where I regarded as home, and that I was only 12 and would have to suffer the injustices of childhood for a few years yet...
My Australian Friend...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 101
Owen, he's got it all and how I don't know.
A friend/acquaintance, who moved to Australia to pursue a doomed romance. I haven't had the heart to tell him. It doesn't matter, we all do what we do and there's no talking (me at least) anyone out of a bad idea.
He's visiting a girlfriend.
But while he's there...
And he has the same interest in gems, minerals, prospecting, that I do, only wants the experience. And he's landed in Shepperton, North of Melbourne, maybe 30-40 miles from Ballarat.
And looking for advice.
So I go looking on maps and searching what's out there, this has been a dream of mine for quite some while.
He is the hand, I am the brain.
SO I get to googling and there's everything. Diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, zircons, topaz, gold....
I could go on. It's everywhere. All in the state of Victoria. All within an hours drive. And this is in Australia, where if you stub your toe on an oversized gold nugget you call the council to remove it.
So I spend a few hours sending him links, looking at maps, warning him of hazards (don't stub your toe on that giant nugget ....) and I'm thinking....well, fucking bloody hell you know what I'm thinking....I got a job at the sushi joint and they haven't yet called to give me a schedule...
Dad, Daughter, on a Buckboard riding through...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 89
I'm in an old hotel (??), brick and mortar, big, down in the basement, and I'm with my daughter (young, toddler, under 5) and my father's on a buckboard, you know, old-styled horse drawn wagon, and he's going to be riding through and wants me to throw on my daughter...
She'll like this, and so sure enough he comes riding through and and I get her and a couple stuffed animals onto the seat, and then they're past me and I'm trying to catch up...
There's all sorts of things tripping me up, the hall's made narrow by an enamel wood burning stove, cupboards, and the wagon has knocked all the doors open and I'm wondering how it got through...
He'd driven it around the top of the hotel, the lobby, the beautiful light of the setting sun, summer, and I'm trying to snap a picture of him & the daughter on the wagon, golden hues against rich deep blues, the phone though, it's not working, can't seem to pull up my camera, and I'm trying to scrape off some duct-tape residue that must be interfering...
The daughter's coming towards me, herself now maybe 12 years old, and she's someone on her shoulders...
Outside, a beautiful garden, slivers of vanishing sunlight playing against the brick of the building, and again I'm trying to catch a photo, but this damned phone, camera...
And a Canada Goose flies right past me, into a deep green-blue hedge, and it changes there, into a silhouette of something else completely, something unreal, something formless that begins to sing...
(and I wake up, a beautiful dream and all attempts to get back to it fail...)
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