Spin in the Cycle

#3
originally written Monday, April 24, 2000

It all rolls into one
And nothing comes for free,
There's nothing you can hold, for very long.

And when you hear that song
Come crying like the wind,
It seems like all this life was just a dream.

-Robert Hunter/ Jerry Garcia-- "Stella Blue"

I use this lyric in connection to what Larry wrote to say about this "impermanence" I keep mentioning. He suggested that there were tunes in his head that have been there forever, for infinity--so where's the impermanence in that?

Well, the tune does last forever. The musicians change shape--how's that? The same it seems for baseball, buildings, boats, and battles. The same tune, a different shape. And so on ad infinitum. Such is dhamma. Just don't go holding on that Joe Dimaggio is the be all and end all of baseball players... it ain't so (there, I said it ain't so). Who he is and what he is is immaterial (in every way!)--what counts is the swing of the bat, the slide into homeplate, the running/diving catch. The player is just singing the tune:

I can't stop for nothin' I'm just playing in the band.
Playin', playin' in the band.

-John Barlow/Bob Weir-- "Playing in the Band"

Well, onto San Francisco now.

There is something very weird about flying. Time just becomes mushy going horizontally across the earth at a rapid speed. Relativity becomes stone cold reality when you fly. Depending on which direction you fly in and how far you go, you either lose an entire day, or you gain one. From Bangkok to San Francisco--I left at noon March 22 and arrived at 11:50 am March 22. I arrived 10 minutes before I left. I'm too lazy right now to sort it out exactly, but if you were to go around twice and twice as fast, would you arrive two days earlier? Hmm. Spin in the cycle.

The other thing about flying--it seems to be dead time. Who really remembers much about time in an airplane? Well, sure, the time you puked, or the guy beside you was drunk and obnoxious (or maybe that was you before you puked!), the smell of baby barf and orange juice, the baaaaaaddd foooooddd, and the time you joined the mile-high club (I did just before landing at Heathrow in 1984!). But I mean, there's 12 hours or more to account for--what happened to that? I guess the same can be said about the time we sleep, standing in line at the bank machine, sitting in a car during rush hour, walking to school, brushing your teeth... what happens to the mind then? It's part of life right? We breathe during these moments, so they must be of some significance to our lives. So next time you're on the crapper, don't read, think about what you're doing, feel your breath, and really be there. Try that in line at the bank, or turn off the car radio and just sit there and breathe, or when you walk, just walk... don't think of where you're going, what you will do, what you did before, who you love, who you hate...just walk. There, a friendly lesson in insight meditation.

Arriving at SF, it was a gorgeously sunny morning. It's great coming to a place where English is spoken fluently and you kinda know the ropes. Customs was a breeze as usual, one reason was because I only had one small bag. I inquired how to get downtown and grabbed a communal minivan to Bush Street, where the Juliana Hotel is. Tony had arranged it so that I could stay with him. I grabbed a big green apple offered at the front desk and went to the room. The room was done up in sort of Mediterranean French/Italian style. Bright yellow and oranges with Hepplewhite chairs in ochre and off white broad stripes, and cherrywood and titanium-white painted furniture. It was a large double bed. I dropped my gear, took a shower and headed out to feel the United States!

Walking down Powell I noticed everyone was talking really loud. People were decked out in all sorts of clothes and fashions. Noone was nonplussed about where they were and who they were, or so it seemed. The air was crisp, a cool 17c, but invigorating. One thing you notice is the homeless folks. Mostly black. All ranting with a pitch. A fat guy held a sign that read, "Why lie? ... I want beer." Some lady screeched really loudly as people walked past, "Gimme a dollar!" There is danger in the air, clearly. You could easily turn a corner and end up in a really bad part of town. By bad, I guess you could be really hassled to give up some money... it could even be by force. I wandered around Market Street and made one wrong turn up one of the bad streets. It didn't take much to figure it out...it stank of urine. It kinda reminded me of the time last June when I helped my brother-in-law install lights in a Toronto prison. We arrived before the criminals did to await trial, but it took about a half hour after they arrived and then the place stunk like piss, sweat, and feces--just really strong animal/testosterone smells. Gals-- does this turn you on? It must because the fragrance industry has resorted to attack our olfactory senses with smells like this. I'm serious. They've done market research on it, and have instilled a little bit of sweaty man smell in the latest Calvin Klein stink. It's bad--so bad that a school in Halifax banned kids from wearing that shit to school. One kid didn't, and they got the R.C.M. P to stop the kid from coming to school. Well, I've ranted at length about the current stink craze people wipe on their bodies already. You know my position on it.

I turned around and headed back to Market and did a little window shopping. The best thing about America is that clothes and that stuff are cheap, compared to Canada anyway (that's where I'm from, remember?)--at least things seemed to be on perennial "sale". Taxes were pretty hefty, which was surprising. Service sucked. I went into get some razor blades and it was a fat black chick who was pretty bored at the cash. She did her job in a bored, perfunctionary manner. I spent a term teaching at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and there service was excellent! People didn't hassle you to buy stuff, but when you wanted service, they were there ready and eager. There were guarantees for all the purchases I did such that I could return stuff, even shoes, if I didn't like them. What a difference in SF.

I headed back to the hotel, but still no Tony. I turned on the TV, which was a real treat. Recall I don't have a TV in Bangkok, so it's a real trip to watch TV (for that fact, I rarely use a phone-- I haven't really owned a phone for over three years. I did have a phone in Nagoya in 1997, but I only used it to send messages to my Baba. That was the last time I owned a phone). I saw some old Saturday Night sketches (the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer!) and some NBA and NCAA action. Then the hotel phone rang! Buddies from Kanda were in the lobby, so I went downstairs and we headed out. We went to the "Irish Bank", a pub just down the way, and had some nice Guinness and made up for the lost years.

Recall that the sole purpose for going to SF was for this Kanda reunion party. At this point I want to backtrack and lay down a little background of how this came to be.

Tony and I were sitting around the pool at the Federal Hotel in Bangkok, spring, 1996. Tony mentioned he had talked to a few people about the party he was planning. He called it the Kanda Bash 2000. He solicited my help to contribute ideas and set up the website. I made the site in August, but it was lost when my account at the University of Toronto expired. About a half a year later, Tony got the Kanda folks to make one up again. All that was on it was a guestbook and some target dates. No plans were made, noone else coopted into the project. It sat like that for a while, and then Tony got more and more people involved to help out, both in San Francisco and anywhere else people were. To make a long story short, everything came together as projected, and the Kanda Bash 2000 become a reality. In fact , the date March 25, 2000 was officially proclaimed as "Kanda Day" in San Francisco by the City Mayor. Not bad huh!

I don't think I said this, so I'll say it now: Tony, thanks!

It was your committment and hard efforts to get people turned onto this party, and it just would never have happened without you. Some may have scorned the idea, some were blase, but you never let go of your vision--and it actually happened, warts and all. It indeed was a re-union, a bringing together of friends past and present, and it rekindled a spirit that one can only describe as "family". Whatever sentimental thoughts one might have of such moments, the most important thing in our lives is the recognition that all moments of our lives are significant. Sure Kanda was a job, but it was a place where vast amounts of people spent years being together, for better or for worse. And so Kanda was worth celebrating as much as any other event in our lives. For that fact, sitting on the can, standing in line for the cash machine, sitting in traffic, and the million and one other events we do unconsciously day in and day out are worthy of celebration. Our very presence, our lives, and the lives of all things here right now merit our undivided attention and equanimous, unconditioned love. Then it can be said we truly lived this life, fully awake.

And when you are awake, you are playin', playin' in the band.

May all of you play.