I’m
afraid I’ve no choice but to continue on with yet another of these: ‘Blog entries
from thirty thousand feet’ blog entries.
Back over Alaska now on an Air China flight. I’m heading home.
When I got on board this flight, I noticed dozens and dozens of
students. They all had orange tee
shirts on. Statistically one is aware that plane loads of Chinese kids are
visiting America every day. I’m
now sitting amidst the proof.
One of these young people was waiting for me in my
seat. He wanted to trade seats so
he could sit with his friends. His
English was rather rough and we switched to Chinese. His seat was in the back. “Oh yes, it is an aisle” he said, as we headed back. Upon arriving he actually had a window
slot in a veritable ghetto of orange tee shirts. I told him “sorry, but I really don’t want to switch.” And then, he became grumpy, which was
somehow the kiss of death. If he’d have pleaded with me, cracked a joke,
smiled, I might have softened.
Entitled, and surprised however, that he wasn’t getting what he wanted
as he seemingly otherwise always had, he did wonders for my selfishness. He probably feels 恨之入骨[1]
to your tender author but I fly to often to be accommodating.
This was one of those flights that took off at 1:30AM. Everyone is wisely asleep. As I look about there are only one or
two offending screens I have to ignore.
It’s light outside once again. The sun never sets at the North Pole in summer. I’d like to be able to have a look, but I had my chance and obviously passed on that.
I asked a friend to come meet me at LAX for the few hours
I’d had, just now, switching planes.
Somehow I imagined driving off to Santa Monica and dining in some fusion
restaurant by the sea. As it was,
I got in an hour late and we wound up trying to find a place there in LAX. What a compromise that place is. Walking from one terminal to another at
11:00PM there were decidedly slim pickings. We made our way over to terminal two where Air China was
located. “Any place you can
recommend to eat?” No. She had none. “There’s a Starbucks downstairs.”
I know this Starbucks, in the arrival area. So I had a fruit juice and my friend a
muffin and we caught up on things at a table beside the endless queue of people
who were in line there, as things moved towards midnight. My friend is an artist and he worked as
we talked at his latest creation while we sat there. A young kid walked by and said: “That is bugged out. Wild
man. Wild.” I said: “hey thanks.” Even though it
wasn’t anything I’d done, to fill the silence. My friend didn’t respond, as if fully aware and in
agreement with the diagnosis that his work was “bugged out.” Eventually did thank the young man for
his commentary, and continued on with his drawing.
Sitting there, it was a rather helpful Starbucks playlist that
choreographed the discussion. I
was describing some momentum of mine and some anthemic Aerosmith song began to
rock away. Then a Monk tune and a
Hank Mobley song followed one, after the other and it brought us both back to
the time we’d worked together at the Village Gate at Bleeker and McDougal. Later, pressing hard on a particular
point, challenging my friend to think about what he was saying: we both paused,
took note and laughed as Dylan’s “Positively Fourth Street” began to play.
Once we heard it, we paused and listened. I can remember
reading something by Joni Mitchell where she stated that this tune of his that really changed it all for her. I guess there hadn’t really been such a
sharp and biting take-down like that on the airwaves before.
To me, it always feels like one of the first punk rock songs, smart, cutting,
unfiltered. His
disdain is so sharp and his delivery so restrained as if he’s mastering all the
bile within him, that you can’t ignore the details of the story. And once again I found myself imagining
the person he’s talking about as she walks up and stands inside his shoes.
We packed up our things and something funky came on the air
that I didn’t recognize. More than
ever this gets to me and I used Shazam to discern that we had Boogaloo Joe
Jones on the guitar with the tune “Boogaloo Joe” from 1969 release of the same
name, up their floating about behind the LAX arrival noise. With a name like Joe Jones, he needed
something up front to distinguish himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_Joe_Jones
The stewardess tells me we have seven hours left to go . . .
The stewardess tells me we have seven hours left to go . . .
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