Questions of the Moment
(Written from my back deck while watching gulls fly overhead.)
Can you believe Paul Newman once drank two cans of Olympia at once after a motocross race on the Oregon Coast?
Did America lose its way when it turned away from tennis to golf about the same time Ronald Reagan won his second term?
Are we better off as a nation now that we have 400 scripted television shows as opposed to 75?
How can another single writer write another single line about the alleged cultural significance of the recently-ended HBO series Girls?
Who did leave that orange dildo behind in the driftwood fort? A tourist?
Why don’t my damn beets sprout in the garden?
Are there three or four or five boys or girls rocking out in a basement or garage or teacher’s classroom who hold promise to resurrect rock and roll as a meaningful form of cultural expression?
What does Calvados taste like?
Why do people flake?
Would it surprise you to learn that I have never once got angry over my upheaval?
Is there any irony in that the last official activity I did with high school students was to build driftwood forts?
Will macrame ever make a significant return to contemporary fashion or home décor?
Why is the newly emerged legal pot industry utterly devoid of storytelling instincts and seemingly occupied by spectacularly incurious entrepreneurs? Was it always about just getting high? And now just making money?
How come Oregon hasn’t produced a single inspiring politician in two generations?
Will anyone read the book I am writing?
Why are people coming at me with bizarre agendas?
Why did it take me this long to read a Philip K. Dick novel?
What if Emily Dickinson had a dog as a pet? A husky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What if Walt Whitman had become a LGBT activist instead of a poet?
What about the neighbor who mows the lawn in the dark?
Why does every woman on probation I encounter in the lobby of the probation office wear sparkly jeans?
How had I never heard the Los Lobos’ “Wicked Rain” before?
What should be done with my 135 journals if I die tomorrow?
(From Neil Young) What color is black when burned?
Is anyone going to give me a second chance?
Why hadn’t I heard of the medicinal uses of turmeric root before?
Can’t you hear me knocking? Do you know who I am?
What about those gill netters and their toy feel-good fishery?
Is it time to see the refuge again?
Does anyone want to play tennis?
Have I truly walked into the light yet, like I always counseled—no exhorted—my students to do?
Why do progressives love to suppress free speech more than reactionaries?
Doe anyone remember that Portland once hosted the largest celebration of Hitler’s birthday in the country? (I was there, on a date, to observe.)
Should I accept a cabin caretaker gig deep in the coastal woods and go off the grid for years?
What are the criminal penalties for stealing a dog chained up in a muddy yard?
Do I really miss teaching?
Why isn’t everyone adopting Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” as the theme song we need for these times that try men’s souls?
Should I bring back the pamphlet to Oregon literature? Should I bring back pamphleteering as a verb? (It used to be a common one.)
Why don’t more people read Isak Dinesen?
Do people really believe writing new computer code is going to save the planet?
Why do lively people cut themselves off from life by staying in lifeless relationships?
Why do people who live 15 minutes from the ocean never go to the ocean?
If you write a song (or book) about someone, does it mean you love(d) that person?
Why are sports talk radio personalities the dumbest people in the country?
When are my three favorite deer paying a return visit to my back yard?