For Darin Price

Darin at center. I'm at bottom, second from left. Fall 1992.

The world lost a good one this week: Darin Price, who managed and pitched for the Dukes' softball team in Sunnyvale, California. I played shortstop for them in the nineties, and had some wonderful times.

So wonderful, in fact, that I wrote an autobiographical novel, The Legendary Barons, which is available for free download the next five days on Amazon.

The book is largely about Darin, who I dubbed Tommy Folgett (I went by Honus, my Dukes nickname). This brief excerpt speaks to the ways that teammates become friends, and also to Darin's very deep soul.

White Plaid

The only one of my teammates to display actual artistic talent was my tough-guy manager, Tommy Folgett.  When I mentioned I was putting together a small literary journal, Tommy surprised me by offering to do an illustration. 

I used to joke that divorce was the number-one cause of bad poetry in America.  Tommy was ripe for some of his own artistic therapy.  Having survived a long bout with alcoholism, he had been ready for a nice easy cruise, but then his wife Sarnah threw up a brick wall.  At the dreaded quarter-century mark (land-mine for young wives everywhere), she started taking night classes and discovered a latent passion for math.  She set her sights on a doctorate, and decided there was only one obstacle - the husband had to go.

Tommy was shell-shocked, clutching for straws, and one of them was my journal.  I agreed to his offer with some trepidation, then found to my great delight that he was quite talented.  Some of his drawings were too slick and cautious for my needs, but others carried an appealing dark edge.  He was working as a designer at a sign shop, so apparently his artistic leanings were not going entirely untapped.  I asked if he would illustrate a poem of mine, and promised to bring a copy to the next game.

I was working as a publicist at an arts center, and had befriended Sandra, a composer of wild, assonant works for exotic groupings of instruments.  Her latest was a piece for violin, saxophone, timbales and congas, which she pounded out on her piano one afternoon as I listened, completely entranced.  She was having trouble coming up with a title, and asked for my help, asking only that it have some connection to the idea of apocalypse.

We were eating a smoked-salmon pizza in Palo Alto the next day when I jumped off the hood of the car and said, “White Plaid! Get it?  If you look at it, it’s just white, but because it’s plaid there’s all these hidden stripes and checks.” 

She loved it. The piece debuted a year later – Sandra sent me a program – but meanwhile, I was left with a title that demanded a poem.  The first part focused on the burst of light from a nuclear explosion, but the final stanza took an unexpected turn.

The bride wore white plaid stealing stripes and checks down the aisle

The groom’s eyes were blue and saw only future

After the next game, Tommy followed me to my car so I could give him a copy.  As he read it, his face took on an expression of increasing fascination. “Honus,” he said. “This poem is about me.” 

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Your eyes aren’t…”

Blame it on male obliviousness, but until Tommy looked up from that poem I had never noticed that he had blue eyes.

Two weeks later, he handed me a pen-and-ink drawing, a breathtaking vision of grace and empathy.  A young bride kneels at the foot of a painted pony.  She is weeping, having missed her first ride on the carousel.

(RIP my friend. You're home.)

Assassins? Now?

 

Sondheim’s Assassins

July 19, 2024

3Below Theater, San Jose

It’s pretty wild that 3Below scheduled this show for a July 13 opening night. They canceled that performance (understandably), but the Attempt on Trump has certainly added an extra layer to the show’s meanings. At a time when the right wants to whitewash anything unseemly about our country’s past, it’s refreshing to hash out some of our ugliest moments in such a bold manner. Consider this one required viewing.

Jon Gourdine and Scott Guggenheim’s set presents the assassination parade as half-carnival, half-horserace. Each criminal is given a chair and a chute under a Vegas-style sign reading TAKE YOUR SHOT. Out comes The Proprietor, a character reminiscent of the Emcee from Cabaret. Kristi Garcia makes the most of it, deploying an impressive array of sly expressions and dazzling red hat and tails to play the role of temptress. The festive opening number says it all: “Everybody’s Got the Right.” (To kill the President.)

Arriving next is The Balladeer, which Jeremy Kreamer performs in an amiable Guthrie/Seeger fashion. His likeability presents a bit of a gut-punch later in the show, when he transforms into Lee Harvey Oswald.

The dubious roll call kicks off with John Wilkes Booth, who seems downright noble compared to the rest of the crazies. Stephen Guggenheim is a perfect match for this role, possessing the needed flash and intelligence for Booth, whose success as an actor meant that he didn’t need the fame sought by so many of the others. The highlight is a monologue in which Booth references the funeral lament of the widow Loman in Death of a Salesman - “Attention must be paid!” - to describe the quiet desperation of his successors.

Meanwhile, a great portion of the show’s appeal comes from recounting the assassins most people don’t know about, including:

Leon Czolgosz, who killed William McKinley, citing the hardships of American laborers. Omar Alejandro plays the part with particular intensity, both of person and (baritone) voice.

Charles Guiteau, a spirited con man who shot James Garfield (the greatest President who never had a chance to govern) because he didn’t grant him an ambassadorship to France. Dario Johnson did a fine job of projecting both Guiteau’s showy positivity and utter lack of substance, especially in his gospel-tinged farewell, “The Ballad of Guiteau.”

Samuel Byck, who dressed like Santa Claus and recorded messages to celebrities (including Sondheim cohort Leonard Bernstein), while working up the nerve to fly his private plane into Richard Nixon’s White House. Rick Haffner is excellent and funny, painting Byck as a sort of left-leaning Archie Bunker.

Fortunately, Sondheim and book writer John Weidman didn’t stop there. They had great fun spinning fanciful combinations. Squeaky Fromme and John Hinckley (Alexandra Shephard and Ryan Sammonds) perform a beautiful love song, “Unworthy of Your Love,” to their dreamboats, Charles Manson and Jodie Foster. The show’s climactic scene has Booth pleading with Oswald to take his notorious shots - and thereby restore the reputations of their infamous little club.

The show accidentally solves a great problem of Sondheim, which is his tendency to overuse his favorite musical devices. With Assassins, he draws on numerous historical sources, including folk, jazz, gospel and minstrelsy, which broadens his palette.

The performance I attended suffered some technical glitches, including the rebooting of a monitor during the show. Even this, however, provided some accidental meanings. The poor tech was stuck on a menu guide that kept returning to an ad for Dateline. Perhaps our assassination attempts are now merely another form of entertainment, as witnessed by the fashionable wearing of ear bandages.

Through August 4 at 3Below, 288 S. Second Street, San Jose. 408/404-7711, 3belowtheaters.com. $25-$65.

Michael J. Vaughn is a forty-year opera and theater critic, and the author of 29 novels, including Mermaids’ Tears and Punks for the Opera, available at Amazon.

Monarchs

I come to a sign that says Monarch Boardwalk. I picture butterflies on rollercoasters, butterflies on Ferris wheels, mama monarchs pushing green, black and white caterpillars in strollers.

And I see Dad in cargo shorts, a golf shirt and a U.S. Navy ballcap. He stops at the sign and reads it out loud.

“Well, let’s see… ‘The orange and black monarch butterfly, known scientifically as Danaus plexippus, migrates every year to Monarch Grove, a preserve at Natural Bridges State Beach.’”

I stand next to him, waiting patiently as he finishes the paragraph. I’m certain the child version of me was much less understanding - a ten-year-old needs only so much prologue to the Grand Canyon or Old Faithful - but this is different. My dad has always enjoyed these performances, but even more now that he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. This is a way to demonstrate that he’s still in the early stages, that he can still give a decent reading of a park sign - even the Latin words.

This little program was dreamed up by my big sister, who thought my stepmom could use a little time off from Dad, who was getting cantankerous and slovenly. We’re calling it Dates with Dad, and taking turns dreaming up entertaining afternoons. As a huge fan of Dad’s home county, I suspected that he had never been to see the monarchs, and I was right.

Problem was, there were none. We stood on the viewing deck, slowly rotating, like a couple of well-behaved drunks, and could not locate a single speck of orange. We had come too late; the monarchs had headed north.

Still, it was a nice stroll. We stopped at a spot next to a lagoon to watch a snowy egret prowling the lily pads. My dad sighed and said, “You know, I thought I could at least make it to ninety.”

But it was not the Alzheimer’s that got him. A long-ago case of scarlet fever had damaged his heart. Now it was leaking, and he was too old and fragile for surgery. My family said that at least he didn’t have to go through the ravages of Alzheimer’s. I’m a little grateful that he didn’t have to go through the pandemic and my nephew’s suicide.

Today is different. It’s an artfully sunny oceanside afternoon, with just enough wispy clouds to frame the blue. Halfway down the boardwalk, an elderly couple sits on a bench next to a sign reading Please be quiet - monarchs at play.

At the end of the long descent, a group of eco-tourists gathers in a library excitement, conferring with a woman in park service clothing. At first I assume she’s playing bouncer, limiting the number of patrons who can board the main deck. In fact, she’s got a telephoto camera trained on a high cluster of monarchs, and her visitors are gathered at the screen. I walk past them to the viewing deck.

In the sunlight, the leaves of a small tree are popping bright green as monarchs fit from twig to twig, gathering nectar. Above them, in a large eucalyptus with its familar blue-gray leaves, hundreds of butterflies huddle on the Chosen Branch, looking like thickly set orange and black leaves in a constant flutter.

After peering at this marvel for a few minutes, I lower my gaze to let my neck rest. I leave the viewing deck in search of better angles, and just then I hear an excited chattering. I look up to see that dozens of monarchs have taken flight, scribbling the blue gaps like motorized confetti.

And I think, Yes, that’s how it feels. If succession holds, each of us will experience orphanhood. But it doesn’t have to be dismal. One is no longer beholden to the unique supervisory power of parents. It’s as if the universe is whispering in one’s ear: It’s all up to you now, buddyboy.

My eyes have taken in all the butterflies they can hold, so I take my leave. I am met by a long line of second-graders, barely able to contain their need to shout or squeal. I am grateful to have avoided this imminent melee, but I do feel like handing them little track-and-field batons. Here, it’s your turn now.

A couple of things. These eucalyptus trees that monarchs so love are not native to California. They were shipped in from Australia to be used as windbreaks. Two: it takes three to four generations of monarchs to complete the northward migration from these wintering grounds to the Pacific Northwest. And yet, the great-great grandchildren of these very butterflies will return precisely to this little grove in Santa Cruz. This blows my mind.

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of Punks for the Opera, Mermaids’ Tears and 27 other novels, available at Amazon.com. The image is from B. Smith’s 1970 painting, formerly owned by LCDR Harold J. Vaughn.

A Note on Woke

If being "woke" is just too dreadfully arduous a task for you, then, at the very least, if you have any desire to understand why you are so fortunate to be an American, I ask you to undertake a mental exercise with me.

First, transport yourself out of this artificial, skin-based identity of "white" and imagine yourself to be simply a Human Being-American.

Now, place yourself in the body of an indigenous American, wracked with disease brought on by the recent arrival of Europeans, your entire village dying around you. This, even more than the constant Indian wars, is what "opened up" the continent for European settlement.

Your next role is that of a Black American, ripped from your African culture, forced to contribute hard labor to build the foundation of an historically great economy, momentarily freed, but  immediately subjected to another century and a half of soul-breaking oppression.

You don't have to take on the responsibility for all of this. Guilt is much less important than the acknowledgement of truth. If you can at least go this far in understanding the involuntary sacrifices made on behalf of your country, then perhaps you can call yourself an American.

Mermaids' Tears (the story)

In my latest novel, Mermaids' Tears, my twelve-year-old protagonist, Rusty, writes the title story as a way to console his older housemate, Autumn, who has lost her brother to suicide.

Mermaids' Tears

In the month of October, in the terminally charming town of Caramel-by-the-Waters, there was born a cute and sweet girl. Her parents named her October. Almost three years later, in the month of July, there was born a cute and spirited boy. His parents named him January. This would not seem to make sense, but the boy’s big ice-blue eyes reminded his father of winters in Wisconsin.

 It’s not unusual for a first-born child to resent a second, mostly for intruding on her parental monopoly, but this was not true of October. She gazed at her big-eyed brother in his crib and said, “I will always be here to protect you, because you are my dear brother, and we will be the best of friends.”

 October and January were, in fact, the closest siblings that any of their friends had ever met, and they both grew into smart and kind young adults. They did, however, have troubles. January’s problem was his brain, which had an on switch but no off. It was constantly on the prowl, and like an overworked engine it would run hot and drift into redlines of worry and fear. It also prevented him from sleeping. Many was the night that October would rub January’s temples and sing wordless songs into his ear - but sometimes even this wouldn’t help.

 October’s problem was her body, which was a healthy body but large and unwieldy. The girls at school made mean jokes that burned like hot embers.

 Caramel-by-the-Waters had some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and the two siblings spent many an afternoon walking their sands. One June day, they came to the tidepools to discover an albino sea lion sunning herself on the rocks. The sea lion tumbled into the water and barked at them. October heard this sound distinctly as an invitation, and before she knew it she was diving headlong into the cold blue waters. She didn’t see the albino creature anywhere, but discovered, much to her surprise, that she, Autumn, was an exceptional swimmer. Her ungainly body, so awkward on the land, became, in the water, a divine transport. She dove deeper and discovered that she could stay underwater for several minutes at a time, navigating the gold-green curtains of the kelp forest.

 When October finally surfaced, she found January pacing the shoreline in a frenetic state. “Where did you go? I thought you had drowned! We need to get home - it’s almost time for supper.”

 Just then, the albino sea lion appeared fifty feet away and repeated its funny barking.

 “No,” said October. “I can’t go home. I think I will stay here and become a mermaid.”

 October knew that this was preposterous. She wasn’t even certain that mermaids existed, and she had no notion of how to go about becoming one. But somehow, January seemed to understand.

 “I’m going to have a hard time explaining this to Mom and Dad,” he said. “But you do seem happy here. Tell you what. I’ll tell them you found a nice place near the beach, and we’ll fill in the rest later.”

 October let out a high-pitched laugh like a dolphin (which was very odd). “Thank you, brother. When you come to the beach, just call my name and I’ll come up to visit you.”

 “Sure.”

 October loved her new life. She swam through swirling eddies of silver sardines, their fins tickling her skin. The sea otters taught her how to float on her back and open shellfish on her stomach. The whales taught her their beautiful and eerie songs. The albino sea lion, Snowball, took her to the edge of the Montrez Bay Canyon.

 Every afternoon, January called for her at the beach. He brought green apples, her favorite food, and used a stick to bat them into the surf.

 October waited for signs that she was becoming a genuine mermaid, but none came. And she worried about her brother. Each day, he looked more and more worried, and grew deep bags under his eyes. She asked if she should return to land so she could take care of him, but he wouldn’t have it. January waded into the surf and gave his sister a long, sad embrace.

 “I’m afraid it’s not something that can be fixed,” he said. “I have come to a decision. I cannot bear this torment any longer. I am leaving to a place where the pain can no longer reach me. Sadly, sister, you won’t be able to reach me, either. But I really need to go. I love you, October.”

 October thought of a hundred arguments to make January stay, but she realized that she could not ask him to suffer what he simply could not suffer. Especially when he had been so supportive of her odd mermaid ambitions.

 “I will miss you terribly, brother. But I think I understand.”

 January handed her a silver necklace. “I recorded some music onto this amulet. It sounds to me like whalesong. Hold this to your ear and it will play for you. Maybe you can share it with your whale friends.”

 They held each other for a long, long time, until the sun dipped under the horizon, and then finally October let January go. He gave one last wave from the crest of the white sand, and then he was gone.

 October thought he might change his mind, but after three days of keeping watch over the beach she realized he would not return. She held the amulet to her ear and sang along with its mournful tune, and as she did she could feel a great pain entering her body.

 The next morning, the pain had traveled to her legs. She swam to the tidepools and lifted herself onto a rock to discover that she had no legs. What she had was a gold-green tail with fins instead of feet. What she had not known was that a human could not become a mermaid until she had suffered a great loss. And certainly, the loss of January was greater than any she could imagine.

 This sudden transformation filled October with alternating waves of joy and despair. She began to cry, and her emotions were so strong that her tears crystallized into bits of colored glass. The waves carried her tears to the shoreline, where beachcombers found them among the pebbles and sand dollars. Most of them called these little gems sea glass, thinking them to be fragments of long-ago bottles, tossed and burnished by sand and surf. But the more whimsical called them mermaids’ tears, and they had no idea how right they were.

Mermaids' Tears (the novel) is available at Amazon.com.

Kyle

 

He is a hole in my heart,

a hard breath,

a slump of the shoulders a

smile that Cheshires away

A determined scowl at the plate,

the line of scrimmage,

a song in the digital sea

A breathtaking embrace,

a joke that now

someone else must tell

We are fortunate beings;

the mind keeps us in mind.

We fill up on the daily particles:

errands, assignments, protocols,

our tumblers too full for bitters

But the busiest of lives finds a

sandbar, and the

space fills up with souvenirs,

visitors at a clinic,

dosing our griefs like

intravenous drips

Kyle left us too soon,

long before he was

due at the station,

and now we live in parentheses

(cartoon eyes, bobbing voice a

tear on the page,

memory’s whisper a

poem that demands to be

written, a pen that

runs out of

Review: East of the Cookie Tree

 

NavigationHomeBooksChrysalidesThe Year Lived Over and OverThe CallThe Light on His FeetFrozen MusicExit WonderlandAll Visions of Blind LoveReviewsWhat’s NewInterviewsLinksDNA Ezine

Review of East of the Cookie Tree

by Michael J. Vaughn

Michael J. Vaughn’s EAST OF THE COOKIE TREE, written with jauntiness and immediacy, presents us with a dizzying array of responses. What at first glance appears a carefree road trip in which Daniel Maryland, a professional actor, wending his way from San Francisco down to two weddings, one in Gilroy, California and another in Malibu where he is tasked to serve as the officiant for longtime friends, unfolds to become a multi-faceted odyssey deftly calibrated to ignite and captivate the interest of every reader. We are treated to a beguiling cast of characters, most notably the adorable and intermittently manic 19 year-old runaway/stoway, Gina Candiotti, who harbors a horrifying familial secret, Willie Craig, the charismatic older idol of the silver screen, the saucy young Cherry who demonstrates an uncanny capacity for executing and expeditiously rendering an erogenous maneuver with our lead character, Daniel, Shelby, the gorgeous and accomplished wedding planner with whom the officiant, also nicknamed, the Rev. and Umpqua Man, enjoys an exhausting tryst, and finally, the Larroquette House which in many ways is a character in its own right. In actuality, all of Vaughn’s characters, whether they be the countless members of the hospitality industry who populate the book or those who dominate greater stretches of the novel’s trajectory, prove memorable because of their authentic dialogue or distinctive eccentricities. 

There is outright intoxication felt at the opening festivities of joyous reunions among two separate groups of close friends gathered for intended nuptials all emceed by the main character, Daniel Maryland,  Shakespearean actor, commercial spokesperson for a nationally renowned insurance corporation, musician, burgeoning fine artist, neophyte wedding officiant for friends, and beloved “Uncle Danny” to numerous unofficial nieces. Daniel possesses an irrepressible charm and luxuriating in the witty, erudite exchanges between the main character and his retinue of animated and engaging friends makes for a lengthy montage of heartfelt interconnectedness we all long for during this somber pandemic, despite the fact EAST OF THE COOKIE TREE transpires during pre-COVID 19 days. Daniel Maryland is a pied piper of sorts who acts as a magnet of positivity and Merlin for sparking the innate creativity of all fortunate enough to be drawn into his orbit. Perhaps it is precisely because he casts this transformative spell on his readers that the psychological bombshell that erupts upon young Gina’s arrival at her home in Eugene, Oregon carries with it the unsettling and explosive impact it does.  That said, in retrospect, as readers we can acknowledge the author has consistently introduced a multiplicity of hints, hints seeded at select intervals, that adeptly foreshadow the darker undertones of the narrative. Against the backdrop of the surreal, carefree ambience of the lifestyles of the rich and famous runs the ominous undercurrent of existence in the everyday world plagued by post-apocalyptic West Coast wildfires replete with hellish orange skylines, and inescapable and volatile contemporary social issues, most expressly, systemic racism.

EAST OF THE COOKIE TREE also provides provocative exposure not only to some of the finest Shakespearean dialogue, but compelling references to outstanding musical and cinematic interludes that help enliven the romantic, upbeat and non-formulaic wedding ceremonies and receptions featured in this spirited novel. The author also shares insights into the main character’s newest vocation as a fine artist whose talent is quickly appreciated by the discerning eye of an upscale gallery owner. We can traverse the pages of EAST OF THE COOKIE TREE, part archetypal road-trip, part magical musical mystery tour, and through-the-looking-glass “classic” cinematic romp into the landscape of what esthetic and philosophical perspectives occupy the inner recesses of a 21st century Renaissance Man’s kaleidoscopic mind. 

While Daniel Maryland’s character may have entertained periods of self-deprecation during his lengthy career as a Shakespearean actor, one can only aspire to capture a single ray of the light Vaughn’s memorable character imparts in his incomparable gift for embracing, inhabiting, and surfing the waves of an inspirational and always indomitable life force.

— Calder Lowe, award-winning editor and widely-published author

EAST OF THE COOKIE TREE is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats.

Order Your Copy Today!

Dragonfly Press is pleased to announce:

The Light on His Feet

Available now – Order yours today!

Read Kathie Isaac-Luke's review of The Light On His Feet on NLAPW's book review site.

National League of American Pen Women

82nd Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition Award Winner

Calder Lowe's First Prize winning nonrhyming poem, "Approaching Clouds Ponder the Fate of a Mustard Seed," featured in the 82nd Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition Collection, may now be purchased here.

About Dragonfly Press

Publisher: Dr. Albert J. Lowe
Editor: Calder Lowe

Dragonfly Press
P.O. Box 746
Columbia, CA 95310

© All rights reserved.

Powered by WordPress