Off to California I go

Very early in the morning I plan to be on the trusty Greyhound bus on my way to downtown Los Angeles where my son Raymond will pick me up. My son Gary called yesterday to see if I was still going. I said yes. I did not mention that Doc was not going with me, since Doc is doing everything he can to make my trip easier, including paying for my ticket there, waking me up (if I don't hear my alarm) and accompanying me to the bus station even at 4:45 am. Greater love hath no other man short term. Gary was happy and said that he thought he would leave that evening, so hopefully the two brothers have been reunited in California. I especially urged my son Gary to see the show, as it was his dad, too, who disappeared into the desert. He was just not involved with him as Raymond was in their adult lives. However, he was ten years old when we divorced, so he took it harder than Raymond did. Dean always thought Gary had a good singing voice. I loved his rendition of "I am a child of God." The above photo was taken the year I left Dean. I am with Gary and Raymond in Phoenix.
Gary loves to go to karaoke bars and sing, but construction work does not leave him much time or energy for anything else. He told me once when he was in his late teens that he thought about pursueing a career as a country western singer, but he already had a taste for alcohol, and he said he thought it would be too much temptation for him and he would be better off outdoors and working hard. He has had a very varied and challenging career in construction where he has often acted as a supervisor on all the field jobs for his company, coordinating the work, delivery of supplies, equipment, etc.

I hope the two brothers are together in California as I write.
I also got a welcome call from my sister Linda in San Francisco who sounded happier than I have heard her since she left. She had just found an apartment there she really likes, close enough to the beach you can see the ocean! She is about ten minutes drive from her daughter Carissa's. It is across the street from the zoo. I said oh her grandkids will like that! Apartments are hard to find down there, even though her daughter was going to sign with her, but her son Scott who drove her up there found one on Craig's list, which had just come up, and they rushed down and got it! She says she will have to go down and get signed up at Social Services just as she would have had to do here, and it will be probably a month or more before she can be seen by a doctor.

Here Linda and I are, standing in front of the Beat Museum in San Francisco where Linda gave a reading of her Bukowski poems last year, and displayed some of the 'heads' of poets she has sculptured, including her rather famous one of Bukowski. I think Linda is very happy now that she has made her move, and I wish her a more fulfilling life doing her art work and writing her poetry in beautiful San Francisco! Once she has received the proper medical treatment I am sure she will be on her way!
Here is her review of Bohemian Cowboy: "I saw Cowboys and Bohemians in L.A. last weekend, first by myself and then with family from Utah. I think it is a very powerful piece of work with insights coming from many directions of the feelings between a father and son. The mystery of Hanks disappearance sticks in the mind. I felt all kinds of emotions as Shurtz moved the story forward, including chills up my spine, sad, happy, embarrassed, and I would say almost grateful sometimes. I don't know if I was grateful for good entertainment...good writing or a good performance.
Raymond King Shurtz is my nephew, but I have followed him through numerous plays in Phoenix. His Blue Baby play won the $5000 fellowship award in Phoenix without hardly a word of praise from the local critic. I was so happy to see the wonderful "Pick of the week" review in LA Weekly. He deserves every word and more.
He and his mom lived for a time with me in Silverlake area of L.A. when I was with Charles Bukowski and Raymond was lead actor in the high school play. He still has it and so much more. You need to see for yourself 38 pages of dialog come to life. He is also a fine poet.
Linda King"

News Flash!!! Raymond just posted saying that David Foti who runs the theater complex has asked him to extend the show another week as more press is coming to review! Gary got there and will see the show tonight. See Raymond's blog Cowboys and Bohemians on my blog list and read the latest.

I ask Doc to stay home from trip and he agrees

I feel a lot of relief that he took my latest decision well. The closer we got to the trip on Saturday, the more nervous I got. I finally figured out what was starting to upset me and made up my mind to tell Doc I did not want him to go. I realized that I did not want to make a trip worrying about what Doc was going to do. Doc even acted a little relieved and volunteered to get up early Saturday and ride to the bus station with me, so that told me he was not holding my change of plans against me. I said, you just drink too much, and you can't suddenly stop. You will go into delerium tremens. He was probably wondering how he could keep on drinking at his rate while there, too, if he could not quit. It was just impossible.
I am taking a bus that leaves here at 6 AM and gets into Los Angeles a little after 1PM so that is good. It will be the middle of the day so I can figure out how to get to West Hollywood or Raymond can pick me up. I am now reconciled perfectly well to going alone, all things considered. My sons might want to take girlfriends as indicted. I usually prefer to make my own arrangements which do not inconvenience them or me.
I don't know why I temporarily turned into a big baby and did not want to ride the bus alone. This morning I thought, oh God, please let me take this bus alone. Doc pointed out that I would not even ride to the grocery store anymore with him, so he was wondering how I would be able to ride to Los Angeles with him. The answer is I cannot. Reality set in.


Right now I am perfectly happy to be going to Los Angeles alone! Raymond, Kurt, Scott, and Pam, I will soon see you and hope to have a wonderful time!
By the way here is Linda's daughter's review of the play who came down from San Francisco to see it and help her mom make it to her city.

Carissa Bongiorno - Mar 3, 2009 Viewers | Reply to this item I am very happy that I was able to make it down to see the play and I think everyone in our family should make any effort possible to see this show. I have to say that there were times that I was overwhelmed with the content of the story but also with Raymond's delivery. We joked that Kurt's direction was called "tender" in the review but it really was so touching and emotional at times and Raymond had just the right mix of funny, sad, happy and nostalgic. Raymond's singing voice was strong and clear. I think it would be fun to do this performance around a campfire so we could sing along at times. I was also proud of my baby brother Scott's technical/lighting ability; he really does know something about all of this theater stuff!
An extra benefit was seeing the Utah family and comparing stories. It is so nice to reconnect. Maybe we should become groupies and go to every city where Raymond performs (Rayheads?). Anyway, GO see this show! It is my pick of the week."

Carissa, Linda, and Clarke in her backyard in her home in SF.

Doc says he will accompany me to Los Angeles to see Raymond's play

I was worried about my proposed trip to Los Angeles as my son Dan's hours have been cut so drastically on his job, due to the economy turn down here in Arizona, he cannot afford to go. My son Gary is taking a girlfriend and only has two seats, but I did not want to horn in on his mini-vacation, he takes so little time off. He has had to work weekends to make sure all the jobs get done right, so the construction company he works for stays afloat. Work is hard to come by right now. I hope he will find the time to go. My daughter Ronda starts her first nursing job Monday, and is committed to so many different things this coming month, she could find no way to leave.
That left me to go by bus or plane by myself. I just could not get too excited about a trip alone. Doc could see I was depressed so he said he would accompany me to Los Angeles! By plane or bus, whatever we decide. He has a healthy bank account for a poor guy, he is so frugal, so I thought well, this is a trip I would take with him. I did not want to take him to Utah, as he might not be able to handle so many family members on a trip, but he is quite enthusiastic about a trip to Los Angeles where he has even lived before for a few months. He is comfortable with cities, being from St. Louis, but not with the country.
He is going to take the camera and tripod and hopes to film some of the play if Raymond is willing or at least something of Raymond. He has promised to keep his mouth shut and behave himself during the play. So now I have perked up and feel better. I am not saying that such a trip won't have its ups and downs, but I am willing to take a chance in order to get to Los Angeles to see the play!
Oh Raymond called and said audiences have not been too big, but they have been enthusiastic. The man responsible for the grant money to do it was there opening night and he was very pleased with the progress of this play as a performance piece that could be done in other towns and cities. He called me after the play last night and said it was another good night.
I was excited because a whole van of Utah people are going to drive to Los Angeles next weekend to see the play, including my sister Margie and several nieces, a husband or two. I think my sister Linda will also see it then if she is able, as she plans to go as far as Los Angeles in the first segment of her move to San Francisco.
I am thinking about a weekend in March.

Laying the groundwork with Dante...

All during Dante's visit with me during which he kept his video games going, I insisted on talking to him about a lot of subjects, telling him he needed to think about these issues in order to become a good video partner.
Actually I was very surprised that his mind was quite open and he expressed some emotions as we went along, as this was the first time I have actually discussed my issues with him, especially to do with legalized abortion and politics and such, but I think he is realizing that with his teen years he is old enough to get involved, so he is listening. His first video has already garnered 44 hits on my video blog. See my channel on the bloglist on Youtube. It is gerryking40. So I decided to upload one more that we did. I could not fully get his attention on a longer one, so I told him the next time he came we had to do some videos first with no distractions, before he could even go to the computer. He always acts as though he just does not get enough computer time, so he comes to my house to do some catching up, knowing if that is what he really wants to do, I won't curb him. As I tell him on the second video dealing with his obssession with video games I have my way of limiting the frequency of his visits. He never noticed as he expects to spend most of his time with his dad doing stuff with him. He takes him to do fun things like play paintball and to the movies and so on. His dad is always buying books for him as Dante has developed his taste for books his dad likes, science fiction and such. Before Dan started writing movie scripts he was always writing science and fanstasy fiction.
When I went down to Doc's this morning he had denigrating things to say about the two Dante videos as well as some shorter ones Dante filmed of himself playing his video game. Dante told me a kid he knows did this and got a bunch of hits on Youtube. But after I saw it, I told him I did not think it was a good enough video to put on Youtube. But I think Doc was stricken with feelings of jealousy, so could not bite a nasty tongue. I got very mad at him as I said that he, Doc, refused to take the first step in being able to interact with my family, which is stop being a drunk. So he subsided. I must say Dante was more alert than he is when it comes to issues and was doing more and better thinking than Doc does who cannot be convinced how much his constant boozing hurts his problem solving. He usually just settles for being the court jester. Doc knew very well I was right, but he raises doubts in my mind about his attitudes when he talks like that. He is probably too judgmental when he is sober, too, especially when it comes to young minds.
You can't be too critical of the young as it hurts their just emerging confidence in themselves, which is one reason I put the kabosh to Doc interacting with my family. I think Doc gets very bored with his isolation, but that is his choice. I also went home not long after we started watching the football game together, as he always has to make sure I know that sports events are not his thing. He has more intellectual pursuits. While I have always thought that going out for sports was just a healthy thing to do and can only give a thinker more stamina and vigor.
I even discussed the lost boys of Sudan with Dante as I had just read a novel called What is the What by Dave Eggers about the horrible treatment in southern Sudan of these boys who started walking in the thousands first to Ethiopa and then finally to a UN refuge camp in Kenya. The United States finally agreed to take some of these boys here, some of whom came to Phoenix. And guess what the Circle K in downtown Phoenix where Dante and I go all the time has employed several of these 'lost' boys of Sudan from time to time. There is one working there now. I have got so I can recognize them since I also have a grandson whose father was from Sudan, but he comes from the northern big city of Khartoum, and the Khartoum Sudanese with their Arabic blood looked down on the southern Sudanese who lived mostly in small villages and without the Arabic blood were darker. It was the same old thing even there of lighter being better than darker. So after the British left without separating the two areas into different countries because the northern faction promised peace, a bad ruler broke that promise and was encouraged his soldiers to go into southern Sudan to loot and steal and even to enslave some of the people. They burned villages and many of the walking lost boys died of starvation, exhaustion, wild animals, drowning, etc. Many countries protested. The boy in the novel finds out later that his mother and dad and some of his family survived the slaughter, but it had been so many years since he was seperated he did not go back. Besides he did not have the money, as people soon forgot them in the US where he came as they might a new toy and they began to think that no one really cared about the lost boys of Sudan. The life of a refugee is never easy.
So when Dante comes again in a month or so, we will be making more videos. And we will cover such subjects. Doc is talking about rehab again but I will believe that when I see it. I also asked Dante if he wanted to go to Los Angeles with his dad and me to see his Uncle Raymond's new play, Bohemian Cowboy. He was enthusiastic, so I will buy the tickets for the three of us. I think it will be March before Dan can find a date for us to go. Dante can see the play and visit an aunt Stephanie he has over there. He has stayed with her in the summers many times. She is a saint. She is his grandfather's sister who was murdered when his mother was 6 years old, so Stephanie has always tried to make up for his absence from the world.