Sharon, from Upstairs

The most frightening thing about Sharon's taking over was that she came onto the floor without an entourage. She swept in alone wearing a gray suit, carrying a thin attaché. She was tall, slender with medium cut ash blond hair. She went into her office and began talking on her tiny phone, tapping notes into her thin device as she spoke. We all watched her from the floor. Her office wall was glass, and looked out onto the sales floor. The other bosses had kept the curtain drawn, but not Sharon. She wanted to be seen, we thought. She didn’t sip from a cup or a water bottle.
“Go to work, you bastards,” Harding said to everyone. He was retiring, had seen it all before and knew that the best thing you can do is go about your business while the new boss settled in.
The next day, a large man in a gray suit came in and began work in the secretary station. He looked like a paratrooper who had wandered into Barney‘s for a makeover.
“Sharon’s secretary,” Lisa said. “A guy, that’s so great.”
The secretary was Jim. He was polite, but silent, and set about running Sharon’s office. Her phone rang continuously. Jim managed the calls and Sharon’s calendar. No one breezed in past Jim to talk with Sharon. She took her coat off, and worked in a white blouse. Her nails were the color of wedding ribbon.
The third part of Sharon’s team came in. Jack Busby, from Accounting. He smiled and looked shaved, showered, powdered and ready to downsize. Busby left a curl of cologne behind him as he swept by on his way to Sharon’s office. We watched him in with Sharon through the glass. She spoke and he listened. He was getting some orders, and he was paying attention, the bastard.
“That’s it. We’re dead,” Wolcott said. He stood there in his charcoal gray suit with sherbet tie. He suddenly looked like he needed a shave.
“Accounting. Christ, Jesus,” Tony said, getting ready to go out on the road. “Nice knowin’ you pricks.”
“Anybody going out make you're you’re back by three,” Harding said, affably, nodding at Tony. “Sharon has called a meeting in the big room. Goals. Get your ducks in nice rows for Sharon. Poor bastards.”
Everyone hated Harding. He was retiring, and he was enjoying this too much. Everybody hated him.

Little Quake

Dawn
Pigeons high in the desert trees,
who knew they could fly like that?

The cat acting like it's on the hot roof,
I go back to bed and it happens-

earthquake,
something more than vibration,
something less than ecstasy.

more from Las Vegas Blues

I live at the
True heart of America
Commerce of dreams made real in flesh and dice
Ancient commerce
A harlot stoned
Armored thugs throwing bones with their backs to the dying naked God.
It never rains here. No Friday, no Sunday. Always Saturday, always night on the real main street of Empire.
The nucleus of the dream of light and pleasure.
I am awake.

from Las Vegas Blues

First the money

then the water

became memory.

The people fled followed close by their ghosts

Then, as softly as a kiss the desert climbed the walls and it was done. -J Olson

'55 Chevy of "Two Lane Blacktop"

1955 Chevrolet Original Two-Lane Blacktop '55 Chevy |(From "Lenp's Garage)Nope, this is not just another clone. This is one of three '55 Chevys built by Richard Ruth for the 1971 movie Two-Lane Blacktop starring James Taylor, Dennis Wilson, and Warren Oates. Two of the three '55s were reused in American Graffiti - this particular '55 was not. It was only used in Two-Lane Blacktop and then sold to a studio employee. This was the camera/dialog car and most any time you see the actors inside the car during a scene in Two-Lane Blacktop, it was this one. The studio fitted the car with scaffolding and camera mounts so the actors were filmed inside the car while they were actually driving down the road - some of the brackets the studio welded to the frame are still there. After a four-year search, the car surfaced in Canada and I was able to bring it back to the States in 2001. I restored the car cosmetically in 2002 and in 2005 I trailered the car to California where Richard Ruth removed a Camaro front clip that someone had put under it in Canada and fabricated a replacement straight axle with coilovers from original plans and photographs of the cars under construction in his shop in 1970. The '55 still has a 454 BBC topped by a Weiand tunnel ram, a vintage Muncie M-22, and a 1960 Olds rear. It is driven regulary. For more photos, visit www.twolane55.com.

Frozen Woods

Upper Peninsula, Michigan

I wasn't very old, maybe five, when I went into the woods with my mother to get a deer. I can see her with the .30-.30 carbine to her shoulder, behind the fallen beech trunk, and the gray brown buck down in the snowy ravine looking up as the unbelievable crack of the rifle broke the world in half. The buck leaped up the side of the ravine below us, and mother levered another round home and fired again. The buck seemed to raise up in the frozen air and then he went down, forever.

As mother dressed the buck, I asked her what my father used to do. "He worked in the woods," she said, drawing the hook knife along the belly of the buck.

I wanted to work in the woods, but it worked out differently.

It was cold, the air was full of frost.

"This is a young buck," she said. "Young bucks are alone, and they aren't as experienced. Lucky for us. We'll have meat this winter." I helped Mother drag the buck out of the woods on a toboggan. I felt bad for the young buck, but I was young.

Time passed, and I was working in California, living along the coast. Showing off for a young girl beneath the Pacific Beach Pier, I rode my surfboard into a piling. The hospital in Chula Vista is close enough to Mexico that you can see it from the windows in the hallways. I was going under when the anesthesiologist said "just talk."

"I was in some frozen woods, skating, and there was a full moon above. My dog was running over on my right. It was as bright as day, but still night. I was skating along the frozen swamp. It was heaven."

"It never froze in the Phillipines," the nurse said, "I don't know what that's like, but it sounds nice."

"It was nice," I said.

Brough Superior-THe Mozart of British Cycles

The opening scenes of "Lawrence of Arabia are as indelible as a first kiss: an overhead shot of an impossibly young and beautiful Peter O'toole prepping his Brough Superior for a run through the English summer countryside. THe following events were at once mythic, tragic, meaningless and mysterious. I have posted some research and backround on the Brough from Wikpedia below.


Brough Superior
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brough Superior LogoBrough Superior (pr. bruff su-peer-ee-or) motorcycles and motor cars were made by George Brough in his Brough Superior works on Haydn Road in Nottingham, England from 1919 to 1940. They were dubbed the "Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles" by H. D. Teague of The Motorcycle newspaper. Approximately 3048 of 19 models were made in 21 years of production. In 2004, around 1000 still exist. T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") owned seven bikes and died from injuries sustained while crashing one. George Bernard Shaw was another among many celebrities that were enthusiastic about Brough products.

George Brough was a racer, designer, and showman. All Brough Superior motorcycles were high performance and superior quality. Most were custom built to the customers needs, and rarely were any two of the same configuration. Each motorcycle was assembled twice. The first assembly was for fitting of all components, then the motorcycle was disassembled and all parts were painted or plated as needed, then the finished parts were assembled a final time. Every motorcycle was test ridden to ensure that it performed to specification, and was personally certified by George Brough. The SS100 model was ridden at 100 mph or more prior to delivery. The SS80 model was ridden at 80 mph or more before delivery. If any motorcycle didn't meet specification, it returned to the shop for rework until it performed properly. The fit and finish was comparable to a Rolls-Royce automobile, and were among the most expensive motorcycles.

Brough Superior motorcycles have always been rare and expensive. Because of their connection with Lawrence of Arabia, their high quality of fit and finish, and their reputation for reliability and race victories, they are among the most collectible motorised vehicles. In 2007, prices ranged from $40,000 to more than $3,000,000 USD.


Lawrence of Arabia on a Brough Superior he called George V. Lawrence owned eight Brough's in all, listed below, with notes in brackets:
* 1922 - Boa (the name was short for Boanerges) * 1923 - George I (the cost of £150 was more than the price of a house at the time) * 1924 - George II * 1925 - George III * 1926 - George IV * 1927 - George V (RK 4907; see photo) * 1929 - George VI (UL 656) * 1932 - George VII (GW 2275) (the bike he died on) * Undelivered - George VIII (still being built when Lawrence died).