Beautiful You Sun Kil Moon & Jesu

August 31, 2015, 2: 36 PM

Woke up at 11: 30 AM to a ton of emails
A friend from Ohio went to a funeral
Over the weekend, he's got another one to go to
On Wednesday
The restaurant business plus a piece of ambient music
From Justin, but I haven't listened to it yet
Dropped some film off to be developed that I'm hoping
Could be right for Jesu/
Sun Kil Moon album art
I was planning on walking down to the Marina
When I overheard someone say the word:
Creole"
With the power of suggestion, I walked the opposite way down the port
To Brandon's, where I had a bowl of gumbo
The waitress working there saw my iced tea cup
She said, "
Oh I work there"
I said, "
Really?
I've never seen you there before"
She said, "
I work from 6AM to 10: 30AM"
And I said, "
Oh, I don't even wake up until 11"

On my way back, I saw this crackhead-looking guy walking his dog.
The dog's hind legs were supported by this little wheelchair-type thing, and he was wearing this tiny little diaper.
The guy was walking the dog pretty fast, and it concerned me a little, and I thought about saying something, but the dog's face looked happy enough.
At some point, the crackhead guy picked the dog up, wheelchair and all, and they gave each other a kiss.
I could tell that the only thing they had in the world was each other, and it was really touching.
My mind jumped to that horrible scene in Midnight Express where the cat, the pet who belongs to the prisoner played by John Hurt, was hung by prison guards

Then I looked down, and I was in the sunny spot on the road, and it felt really warm, and I looked up and I saw my friend Roger's old apartment.
He moved to Portland years ago and got married.
He and I used to go fishing up at Point Reyes, and Bolinas or Stinson Beach.
We'd bring fish back, and I'd clean the fish, and Katy would cook them up, and his girlfriend would come over and the four of us would watch boxing matches or movies or whatever.
I thought of Katy, as I do several times a day.
Then I went into a corner market, and bought some oranges and yogurt and water.
I came back to more emails, and I'll listen to Justin's piece of music soon.
Then I'm gonna restring my nylon string guitar, read a chapter in John Conway's book, and see Caroline tonight for dinner

Beautiful You.

Septemer 2, 4: 45 PM

In my green chair, listening to the kids on the playground
I had the most beautiful day yesterday with Caroline
I went for a walk through the Marina, Fisherman's Wharf
And for the very first time in 28 years of living in San Francisco

I swam in the San Francisco bay.
The water is always too cold, and the thought of swimming in it has never crossed my mind, but I saw three people out there in bathing suits, not wetsuits like you see all the time.
It was a rare sight.
So I walked through the sand at aquatic park and touched the water.
It felt almost lukewarm, and I couldn't believe it.
I said, "
Fuck it," and I stripped down to my underwear and started walking out into the water, like that guy in Coming Home, you know, at the end?
Caroline was smiling really big and she said, "
You're really going out there?" When I got about knee-deep into the water, it wasn't as warm as I thought.
I kept inching my way out there, a little at a time, until a wave came and hit me in the balls.
Once your balls are freezing, that's all that matters; the rest of your body can handle that same amount of cold.
So I dove in and went out to where my feet couldn't touch the bottom.
I swam around a little, came back, sat in the sun, looking out at the boats with Caroline, and I warmed up a little.
I shook as much sand as I could out of my clothes and got dressed.
It felt so refreshing to go out into that water.
I came back to my apartment.
It was nice taking my clothes off and seeing some sand fall onto the floor: a nice souvenir from a beautiful day

Caroline cooked dinner and I flipped through the new movies on On-Demand
And I stumbled upon The Stanford Prison Experiment
I saw that an old cast member, Billy Crudup, was in it
I hadn't seen him in anything for a while, so we watched it
I gotta say this was definitely one of his best
But Caroline and I were both pretty tense as we watched it
The guy playing the Cool Hand Luke-style prison guard was enjoying himself a little too much
But the tension finally eased when the movie ended on Day 6 of what was set out to be a 14-day experiment
And after that, I stayed up pretty late, booking hotels for my East Coast tour next month
Some flights as well

But today has been spent paying bills and trying to figure out an acoustic version of "
This Is My First Day And I'm Indian And I Work At A Gas Station," for a tour that starts in Israel this month.
I leave on the 6th.
The chord changes are very weird in this song, and it requires a lot of bar chords involving all six strings using my index finger, which isn't easy, considering how long this song is.
It's 4: 58 PM, I can still hear the kids on the playground.
I'm meeting Caroline tonight for dinner, and the world and everything in it is a beautiful place

September 2, 9: 34 PM

Just back from dinner with Caroline, and opened my mail
It was a letter and a photo from an ex-girlfriend who I haven't heard from in over a year
She's days away from having a baby, I thought of our time together back then
And how far she's come
I remember her desk was very close to where I'm sitting now
Where she did her homework and was studying to be a child
Psychologist, and I remember the summer when her mother passed
There's never a summer that goes by that I don't think about that
The times we spent in Santa Cruz hospitals, in Los Gatos
I wrote her back and told her how happy it made me feel to see the photo
That I send her my love, and that I'll be back in touch after I'm home from my next tour at the end of the month, when she's a mother

Caroline wants to watch Cool Hand Luke tonight, because I mentioned to her how the guard in The Stanford Prison Experiment was using the same southern accent and lines that were used by the guard in Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman.
She's never seen it, and I haven't seen it for probably twenty years.
She just told me that she ordered it, that it was released in 1967, and I didn't realize that before.
I was born that year, so I'll be paying attention to the movie more than I ever have tonight, knowing that detail

September 3rd, 8: 32 PM

Just back from Mexican food with Caroline
Today was a lot of errands, and we walked through the marina
I picked up the photos for the Jesu/
Sun Kil Moon album art
Bumped into my friend, Melody, on the street, whose coffee shop
Has recently been closed, and we talked for awhile on the corner
Right in front of the market where I've been buying groceries for over a quarter...

Of a century.
It's all boarded up with plywood now.
We talked about all of our many friends who have left the city due to all the new developments.
At the end of the conversation, she said, "
Mark, whatever you do, please don't leave." I said, "
I'm not going anywhere." I got back to my apartment, and I finally had a chance to listen to this ambient piece of music that Justin sent me, and it's beautiful.
I'm gonna add vocals to it on Saturday, the day before I leave for Israel.
I just went over the chords of "
This Is My First Day And I'm Indian" again, and it's still tricky, but I'm getting it.
An old Sun Kil Moon song called, "
You Are My Sun" is gonna play on TV today, a show called Mistresses, and Caroline wants to watch it.
She's in bed, the cat's on her lap, and she just told me that it's on in a minute

September 3rd, 11: 46PM

We watched the TV show, Mistresses, and the song played early and after it was over
We changed it
To Dateline Thursday Murder Mystery
Hosted by Keith Morrison on Channel 3
The cat is sleeping on her lap
And hey, I'm 48, and I'm healthy and happy, and both my mom and dad
Are still alive, and I can see the bridge twinkling like gold out my window
I look up and Jimmy Fallon's face is on TV, and just like Billy Crudup or Anna Paquin or Jason Lee
Every time I see them on TV it reminds me of when I was 32
Everything I had been through has led me to this beautiful piece of music that I'm listening to
While I'm laying in bed next to
Beautiful You