Cleaning the Desktop, June 2006
Peter the Bear holds court at The Shack most nights of the week, whether he’s drinking or not, in a good mood or not, full of mischief or not. We call him Bear because he is built like one. Kids think he looks like Santa Claus, because he does. Bear moved to Santa Monica many years ago from New Zealand. He’s still hard for many to understand, but once you realize you’re conversing with a deceptively smart unambiguous mammal barking obscure but deadly accurate references in New Zelandian, it gets clear; or as clear as clear is at any moment to the regulars who circulate through the Shack, Sonny’s, The Escobar, or a half dozen drinkeries in the blocks toward the beach.
It’s true, the closer you get to salt water, the the better the imbibing, with pilsner poets doing their best and worst thinking--particularly in the invention of reasons to stay put--in seaside pubs. And along the coast of California, there’s a special Mack and the Boys quality out of Cannery Row --“son’s a bitches, saints and angels and holy men”-- among the regulars who perch beneath neon Budweiser surfboards, Dodgers losing on TV, and Pat Benetar blaring from the ceiling suspended speaker boxes. But they are for another story. For now you just have to know Peter. Well almost.
Today was commencement day at UCLA. We were all talking. Peter was, as usual, working the daily crossword with an ear out for anything that might piss him off. Big Pat, who pisses Peter off for sport, had just left his stool to report to work on the other side of the bar across the street. A few stools down, Ed and Doc were waiting for Jesse the Snake, a young intense actor they befriended for his ability to absorb Ed’s unrelenting needling. And Ed needles; once he gets rolling he won’t let his miserable victim get to less than a quarter pint down--for hours. This is how Jesse keeps his pint full for free; as well as why Eddie named him The Snake. Among the guiltless, codependence is an art form.
Jesse the Snake’s real name is Jesse Berns, or at least that is his acting name as it appeared this morning on page E16 of the LATimes, in a four-paragraph review of “Dog Lover’s Symphony” in which Jesse stars as a young parolee who falls in love with a sexy lawyer, over something to do with dogs. Jesse had invited Eddie and Doc to attend the premier that evening, which might have been a risky choice -- except that the movie, which is narrated by a dog (always an even riskier choice) was described thusly: “. . .the film is so off on all fronts it is a chicken and egg conundrum trying to pinpoint specific problems . . . By the time the film’s left-field conclusion drops, involving temporary resurrection and a check for $10 million, the only suitable ending for such a stinker involves a twist-and-tie and a baggie.”
Clearly Ed and Doc would be the perfect premier escorts. Just as clearly, this particular premier, to be attended in the company of Jesse the Star, demanded very special mental preparation, in which Ed and Doc were seriously engaged and had been for some time, which led to my conversation with Peter.
As I said, today was commencement Day at UCLA. I was master of ceremonies for the School of Public Affairs, which graduated 200 or so master’s students in social work, urban planning, and public policy along with a handful of PhD’s and a smattering of undergraduate minors in the fields. Commencements are wonderful rituals: the regalia, the black robes with the colorful felts and satins of the hoods, the families slowly walking wide-eyed with cameras at the ready, the smartness of it all, and, seemingly everywhere, pretty girls in light summer dresses. The ceremonies follow a kind of shared liturgy, with faculty and guest speakers called upon to freshen up ancient platitudes with references to the always new events and challenges of the day. Ours featured a soon-to-be-retired local political icon, remarks by an associate dean, four student speeches, not to mention my narration (only as dogs are not allowed to narrate commencements as they may soon be banned from doing in films).
The politician opened with an enthusiastic report that, thanks to her and a few others, Los Angeles would soon get a new professional football team. The graduates, uniformly underwhelmed by that notion, were represented by their selected peers who spoke of commitment, hard work, idealism, their challenge of staying committed while broke, and one, from urban planning, who chanted for militant resistance against, as near as I could tell, commencement planners and some indiscernible forces that control them.
The associate dean thanked the parents, families, and friends for their support of the graduates, and I added a few minor things and a brief tribute to a recently deceased beloved faculty member. We recessed into the sun, shook hands, and posed for pictures, and all agreed it was a wonderful commencement.
What struck me after, I said to the Bear, is that not one of us--not the politician, the four students, the dean, nor I, mentioned the word Iraq, or the war. Not out of criticism, reflection, nor reverence. Not a word, in a school of public policy’s commencement in June of 2006. Not a word on the very day that, as reported on Morning Edition, listened to on the way in, the 2,500th American died in combat.
It wasn’t by any design or forethought. We all wrote our little updates separately. But when we all spoke, the war went unspoken.
Peter the Bear, in his usual regalia of Corona t-shirt, shorts and sandals, drew himself up on his stool and lifted his white bearded chin. “Of course not,” he barked. “It’s a bloody, stupid war.
“You’re all up there in the university in your bloody robes and whatnot, and you don’t have to worry about it. It’s being fought by bloody mercenaries and your conscripts, no matter where they’re from or say they’re from--they all are.”
Peter, the ex-pat Kiwi cross worder, reads the paper and watches the TV news nightly under the Elvis swinging hips clock. He listens for things that piss him off. He knows what people aren’t talking about in places where they talk about damn near anything, even a movie narrated by a dog; places like seaside saloons and universities, among the knowing, where our distant war is hardly mentioned.
