Marty Barrett: The Flight of the Mavervorl: City Lights

This weekend the family and I drove to San Francisco, where I had some bidness (I am in the Slapping Fools business).

Driving to San Francisco from L.A. is preferable to us over flying, because it allows us to stop at various pea and meat resturants along Interstate 5, and pack for three days what other people might pack for world cruises. We spent $160 on gas.

Above is the Poetry Room of City Lights Books, which I've wanted to visit for over twenty years, ever since I first read a Jack Kerouac biography. That makes me 23.

Here is City Lights' Beat Literature section. I bought a book of Jack Kerouac's haikus. The cashier treated me with disdain. "Tourist," he thought. How dare someone be so on the nose as to go to City Lights and buy a Jack Kerouac book? I didn't even buy "A Coney Island of the Mind". That I then bought a postcard and a poster only increased the cashier's contempt, and I must say I don't blame him.

Still, I was forced to punch him in the teeth. "That's how we do things in Lowell," I said.

I once had a pair of leather pants stolen from me in unusual circumstances. As San Francisco stands between the rich cattle land of Central California and the Sea, cows will often stop here in their long march to oblivion. Cows are exactly like the Elves in that way; their Sea-longing is pervasive.

While being fitted for a new pair of pants, I was heartened to see the brand still on the hide.

The woman who is making them said, "I know that hurt."

She also told me that Levis and other brands lie to their customers, using measurements that reduce waist size and increase leg size, fooling people into believing that they are slimmer and taller. Once thinking I was perfectly symmetrical, I was horrified to find that my waist size exceeds my inseam by three inches.

"That's how we do things in Lowell," I said.

--4.16.2007--

City Lights

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