Where’s Gilroy?

I had lunch at The House of Nanking
The locals looked happy enough
The tourists looked tired and grumpy
Family at a table staring at their phones
Dad’s got a billy fretting about home loans
Mom looks at the check, winces, and moans
Kids being bratty, they got poles in their jeans
They’ve not even touched their braised string beans
They’re disconnected on their own planets
I sat at my table without a plan
In no particular mood, I was the invisible man
In no particular mood, I was the invisible man
If I live to be 60, then I made it to the fourth quarter
If I live past 80, then I’m living on borrowed time
The age I am now, the lights could go out anytime
At my age, the black lights could go anytime

Like my friend, Eleanor, who flew away to Japan
A gift from her son and daughter-in-law, a vacation package plan
She came home and layed down in her bed up in her room
And she never woke up, no, she never did
Eleanor made it to 60 running her donut shop
The place was always dead when I first started going there, nobody was there besides me and my band and a priest, Eleanor, and a graveyard shift cop
Now she could only see how popular the place has got, kids lined up down the block
Not sure what the turning-point was with her place of business
Maybe it was the shoutout to her donut shop in the Sun Kil Moon song, Glenn Tipton

I came home from The House of Nanking
Pulled a muscle playing my guitar
I tried to play it late into the night
But I get flu-like symptoms if I play too much
Early signs of arthritis are setting in, so I’m playing less guitar and doing more writing and reading
I finished the novel Cedar Valley by Australian songwriter and novelist Holly Throsby
The last chapter, it had me in tears
Don’t want to spoil the end, but when the cows go running off
I was reminded of being at my old relative’s farmhouse porch
In the lightning and the rainstorms
I walk the streets and I notice things I’ve never taken notice of before
Big white blossoming flowers on the magnolia trees
The lavender fading as the summer moves along
I looked deeper down into the alley and notice their names
Like Hemmelman, and Salmon, and Star
For 30 years, I walked the streets of Chinatown
And noticed things that I didn’t know were around
Strange fruit, one-stringed instruments that old guys play
Black guys on Pacific Street at 1 o’clock in the morning
The payphone in the corner at Brandy Ho’s
There’s a Tupac mural on Jack Kerouac Alley
But back to books, if you want a good small town mystery
I highly recommend Holly Throsby’s Cedar Valley

Where is this song leading?
Where does any song lead?
Last week, I saw a band on TV
The singer sounded just like Geddy Lee
The chorus went, “Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah, wow!”
Where did the band’s song lead?
Besides reminding me of Geddy Lee
And last night as I was getting ready for bed
Again, I, I turned on the TV
Mass shooting in Gilroy at a garlic festival
13 injured and 3 died
The shooter turned the gun on himself just after his shooting spree

I asked the barista, “Did you hear about the Gilroy shooting?”
He said, “Where’s Gilroy?”
I asked some other people in the café if they heard about the shooting and they said
“Which one?”
I asked another barista further down the street, “Did you hear about Gilroy?”
She said, “No, I’m new, does he work here?”
I said, “No, it’s the location of a festival”
She said, “A yoga festival?”
I said, “No, it was a garlic festival, and there may have been yoga, I don’t know”
She was so upbeat, and I didn’t want to interrupt her
Gleeful attitude with the word mass-shooting

So what will I read now that Cedar Valley is over?
Do I open John Connolly’s A Book of Bones?
Do I finish The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone?
I should probably finish this book about a middle-aged widow
A young, Italian gigolo, hollow
Before moving onto the mammoth-sized A Book of Bones

Yesterday, on the way to a festival called Calico
A friend said, “Did you hear about the shooting in El Paso?”
I said, “No, I didn’t”
The other friend said, “I did
I heard about it and because of it I almost didn’t go
To this music festival we’re going to”

We saw lots of girls with flowers in their hair
The guys all looked fresh from spawn branch
I was there to see an artist named Sachiko
The other man’s plan I didn’t know
The oysters were fresh, Tomales Bay caught
And so were the chicken tacos at the taco truck
And afterwards it got cold
And I said, “Hey, I’m feeling like it’s time to go home
I gotta check on this news, it’s gnawing at me”
They said, “What news?”
I said, “The news about El Paso”

I turned on the news, 20 dead in El Paso
And on the same day, 9 dead in Dayton, Ohio
My sister’s been calling saying, “I’m worried, for my children, you know?”
I said, “I know, I know, I know, I’m a little bit scared too not, wherever I go
Walmart is a place where I often go
Ohio is a place where I often go
Concerts and music festivals are places where I often go
Airports and train stations are places where I often go”
She said, “I know, I know, I know
But my children go to school, you know?
And schools are the biggest targets, don’t you know that Mark?”
I said, “I know, I know, I know
But please know that with your fears, you are not alone
Everybody’s at risk wherever we go”

Some guy said to me these shootings are happening all because of Trump
I said, “Well, what do you want from me for your ingenious conclusion? A fist bump?
What do you want from me in exchange for your opinion?
If you want a high-five, it ain’t gonna happen, because I think the problem’s a little bit deeper than that”
He said, “Well, don’t you agree? Why are you so tepid?”
I said, “Because I was born in 1967
James Huberty happened under Reagan
Virginia Tech happened under the Bush administration
Columbine happened under Bill Clinton
The UT Tower shooting happened under Lindon Johnson
Orlando and Newtown and the Batman Shootings happened under Obama
Mass murder’s been a staple of the American diet since Europeans first landed on it
Gun violence has been a staple of the American diet since our ancestors slaughtered the Indians
Gun violence is in America’s roots, mass murder is our foundation
And when they got done mass-killing the Indians, they kidnapped and enslaved and mass-murdered Africans
I know what you’re thinking, ‘Why are you giving me this history lesson?’
I say, if you want to blame mass murder on a single president, well, to me, that’s your own thinking
If you think mass murder is a new trend, then maybe try a sip of that Kool-Aid that the Jim Jones Cult was drinking”
He said, “Well, gun violence is on the rise”
I said, “Hey, it’s always been
You think if Joe Biden were president, that gun violence would be decreasing?”
You asked me, “Who’s Jim Jones anyhow?”
I said, “Well, he was around during Jimmy Carter”
You looked at me inquisitively, and I said
“He was the president once, and his daddy was a peanut farmer”
I said, “I’m not trying to have a pissing match with you over which one of us is smarter”
I said, “I’m just saying, we’re on the same page, for I’m also anti-guns and anti-Trump, and I also want peace
And having a conversation about it is a step in the right direction, and that’s what we’re doing”

Where is the song leading?
Where does the song lead?

Where is the song leading? Where does any song lead?
Remember when Judas Priest almost went to prison ‘cause two kids committed suicide while listening to one of their albums?
Their lyrics said, “Do it”, or, “It’s time to die”, or something like that, I can’t remember
But I just thought of that for some reason
It’s warm tonight, fuck, it’s warm
The ceiling fan is spinning at its highest speed, the AC is set at 70
But damn, it’s warm
I spend the afternoon swimming and picking blackberries along the American River
And I came back and shook my plum trees
Bright purple plums were falling all over the dry brown gold country ground
Now there’s a giant bowl of them on my oak table in the dining room
Pink and red flowers in the vase
Flowers that I pruned from trees and bushes out back
I can’t wait for you to see them tomorrow
I can’t sleep, it’s too hot
I just went down to the porch for some cooler air
Everything was dead quiet and still until I saw a little black animal shimming up the driveway
And it started coming up the steps like a cat that’s lived here for 10 years and knows its way around
I grabbed the lantern and saw his white stripe
When he saw the light, his shimmy became a saunter
Then he stopped in the middle of the steps
My God, skunks are so cute
He turned around and walked through the yard, stopped, and stuck his butt up towards my direction
He’d walk another 3 or 4 feet, stop, and do the same thing
I watched him until he disappeared into the black, unlit corner of the night
I’m back in the bedroom
I just finished The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
Heartbreaking
Retired actress
Flashbacks to her seizure in Toledo
And to her dying husband on an airplane
She’s in Rome, basking in old articles about her younger years
She’s vulnerable, a certain contestant and some asshole gigolo fuck with her throughout the book
Painful, my God, what a painful, uncomfortable, yet somehow beautiful read
The life’s journey of Mrs. Stone, from when she was just 10 years old
A lot of what Tennessee Williams refers to is the “drift”
That’s what I’m gonna do now, drift
I’m going to drift off to sleep
A lot happened over the weekend
The chorus to one of Sachiko Kanenobu’s songs is playing in my head
The one she played at the Calico Festival
The verses were about the changing seasons, the chorus was
“I wish you peace”
Or maybe it was
“I wish peace in your heart”