The Pronouncement

All good fiction resonates because it either illuminates our real world or allows us to see it from a new angle. What constitutes good fiction is, of course, a matter of intense debate. Aside from a pretty short list of accepted classics, there is no consensus from that point.

Adding to the uncertainty is the relative weight given by readers, literature professors and commentators to specific genres. Mainstream fiction--the kind that gets reviewed regularly in the New York Times--is presumed to be worthy of most serious contention and the genres go down the list in prestige from there.

Down near the bottom of that prestige list dwells Science Fiction. Some--Bradbury, Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Gibson--have managed to overcome that huge starting deficit to garner serious consideration from readers and the professoriate alike.

But even further down that list sits Fantasy, with all of its silly swords and sorcery, dwarves and elves, wizards and paladins, castles and grand keeps and, of course, quests.

Even so, Tolkien is considered a writer of some worth, even if in the sense of "worthy to bash" by the literary establishment. But beyond Tolkien, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Fantasy writer who is taken seriously and whose works are commented on in depth.

I read across a spectrum of genres, but now, at forty-plus years, I have the opportunity to see what has really stayed with me, what has really driven home a life-lesson or, in some cases, haunted me over the years and decades.

Some of what I once thought were works that would stay within me forever have been surprisingly discarded without much of a thought. Catcher in the Rye, for example. Another "life changer" that has turned out to be not so much of one was Slaughterhouse Five.

Works that have stayed with me in a profound way include works like Camus' The Plague, Zola' Germinal, everything I've read by Balzac (noticing a pattern?), Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, and Gibson's Neuromancer.

Pretty high-brow stuff, but.....

Other works that have stayed with me just as powerfully--and in some cases more powerfully--include works of Fantasy fiction like Nivens and Barnes' Dream Park, the Sanctuary (Thieves' World) series edited by Lynn Abbey and Robert Asprin, Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series, and R.A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy.

As computer role playing games have gotten more complex, some of the Fantasy storytelling that I have found most impressive have actually been conveyed in that format. Modern CPRG's, like Obsidian Studio's Mask of the Betrayer are nothing less than interactive Fantasy novels, with fantastic storylines that actually change the course of the story based on your character's actions. The classic CPRG Planescape: Torment had a script that ran to over 800,000 words, almost all of it top-notch writing.

But the one story that has stayed with me the longest in the whole Fantasy genre has been the story of The Forerunners. It's a simple story, but one I find resonating with me with more power as the years pass. Here is how the story goes, in summary:

Little is known of the Forerunners, except that they were kept enslaved to the evil Illithids, monstrous telepath humanoids with strong magic and psychic powers who held a worlds- and planes of existence-spanning empire. The Forerunners performed all the manual labor and other tasks for the Illithids, including fighting, but over time developed a strange resistance to their masters' mental powers.

One of the Forerunners, named Gith, rallied his people and led a massive slave rebellion, shattering the Illithid empire and forcing their retreat into ever more distant and deep strongholds.

Gith had freed his people. But Gith did not feel that the work was done. Gith argued that so long as a single Illithid existed--or, indeed, any race that could hold his people in bondage--the war must continue.

From the multitude of Gith's people arose another leader, named Zerthimon. Zerthimon argued that Gith's path would lead to endless war, war against peoples who bear no guilt for the wrongs done against the Forerunners and would eventually corrupt them as a people.

Gith strongly disagreed. Gith and those who agreed with him would not be moved.

Zerthimon and those who agreed with him would not be moved.

Zerthimon ended the debate by making The Pronouncement of Two Skies. The Pronouncement is simple and devastating:

There cannot be two skies.

The people of Gith became known as the Githyanki, and continued their war, including against their former brothers now considered traitors.

The people of Zerthimon became known as the Githzerai and seek perfection and unity through purity of will and following the teachings of Zerthimon.

Why does this resonate with me so, this made-up story from a world of Fantasy and games?

This is why: Because I gaze out and consider the state of my people and the future and the great split between those who see the future bright with the fruits of the liberal age and those who see the future grim for the same reason.

And I sit and I think, sometimes I write, I talk, I debate, I consider.

And, yet, again and again and again, I hear the pronouncement in my head:

There cannot be two skies.

On Deck

Today, for no better reason than being in the doghouse with Mrs V, I decided to check out a sports bar in the Pearl District called On Deck. To date, my experience with sports bars in Oregon has been poor. Typically, such places have three bad television sets at bad angles, bad food, poor micro-brews and Blazers, Blazers, Blazers.

Now that I think of it, that last sentence pretty much is the definition of the word "suck."

Anyway, today being Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Chicago at Detroit, I thought I'd give it a shot.

On Deck is literally on a deck, atop a two-story building; you climb wide stairs to the well marked restaurant.

After weeks of dreary mid 50s and heavy rain, today is in the mid 80s, no clouds, hot.

The restaurant/bar is in a big semi circle with tons of big flat screens. In the far corner, the TVs were all tuned to NBC for the hockey game.

To my immediate right is Tony, a Detroit native. Behind me is a table full of Vancouverites who, like me and any proper Canucks fans, are rooting for anyone playing the now-hated Blackhawks. Further to the right are two Chicago guys.

With me are my two young sons, who asked to come along and who, as a condition, had to agree in advance that we are there for the full 3 periods.

We all got to talking and kidding around and yelling at the TV at the same time, and just generally having a good time. In the deep shade of the restaurant, with the doors and sliding patio doors wide open, the rare hot sunshine outside held at bay, the ability to talk about hockey with people who know what they're talking about, well....

....Portland is not a hockey town, but today we came damn close.

Red Wings 5, The Hated Enemy 3.

Go Detroit.

Manic Monday

-- It's raining like mad here in Oregon, wind howling, freeways nothing but barely seen brake lights in a sea of kicked up mist. I'd complain about it, but last week, after only 2 days of sunshine, smog was starting to appear, the grass was starting to turn brown and everything took on a certain SoCal look which had me wishing for the rain back.

-- A commenter by the name of Billy Zoom posted a comment on my post on X below. Billy, if that was you, thanks for reading and posting. If that was one of my friends playing a trick on me.......

-- What can one say about the complete collapse of the Canucks Saturday night that hasn't already been said? By me. In a very loud voice. Directed at the TV. At a level at which my voice is still rendered hoarse.

-- Did I tell you that I am finally learning how to ice skate? Doing pretty well, too. My fourth lesson is this Saturday and I already can't wait. The goal: adult hockey in 2010.

I'm guessing an NHL appearance is out of the question, though.

X, Again

I walked down Burnside in the rain, at night. The lights were making things blurry. I hate to admit it, but lately I’ve been having a hard time seeing at night. There was no mistaking the marquee at the Crystal Ballroom though, bad sight or not. I read simply:

Thurs. X 8pm.

I stopped a moment, officially to straighten my jacket and get a bit more cover from my too-light jacket, but in reality my mind had jumped to a number of years ago, a different street at night, a different marquee.

Sunset Boulevard, Whisky-A-Go-Go. Lisa and Deirdre and Tracey beside me. A lucky boy with three beautiful girls, slightly drunk, weaving across the street to take my place in line for one last X show at the Whisky. After how many?

* * *

A few weeks earlier, and I’m pacing at a gate at Amsterdam’s international airport. In my hand is my only asset, aside from—and, no, I’m not kidding, twenty-five centimes: a one-way ticket, Amsterdam-JFK-LAX.

All I have to do is go back on the jetway and take my seat. I’m pushing it already with the KLM stewardesses because this is the third time I’ve boarded and exited.

I pull the documents out of my front right pocket once more and begin the calculation.

In my hands: one ticket, Los Angeles. La Ciudad de la Reina de Los Angeles, mi hogar. Home. Underneath it, a letter I have been waiting for, so many long years. Dear Applicant, it is our pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted to the University of California at Berkeley. No, no, no, it’s my pleasure.

I thrust the document back into my pocket, spin and look at the curiously 1960’s clock in the terminal. It informs me I have 7 minutes to decide.

I pull the documents out of my front left pocket once more and continue the calculation.

In my hands: one Eurail pass, still good enough for one more trip, one more trip back to Paris. Underneath it, a letter from my love, asking me to stay, not to go home, not to go back, to stay, with her. Her boss won’t allow a boy in her room, but she can hide me, at least until I get on my feet and find a job.

And how will I eat on the trip to Paris? And pay for the Metro ticket to Neuilly?

I spin and look at the clock again. 6 minutes.

* * *

James asks me, “You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry, let’s go in.”

The ticket takers at the door of the Crystal Ballroom look very young to me, but, hell, of course they do.

I pull the TicketMonopoly ticket out of my pocket and hand it to the oh-so-alternative guy at the door. I look down at it just before handing it over, remarking to myself for what must be the 100th time how distinctive it is that in the big space reserved for the headlining act’s name is just a simple capital “X”.

“Here’s my ticket for the X show,” I say, completely unnecessarily to the ticket-taker.

I turn to James and smile, “Just like old times.”

* * *

I’m up against the wall in line at the Whisky, inching in, foot by foot. Someone walking along the sidewalk causes a murmur in the crowd behind me and I turn to see a very large man striding down the un-lined portion of Sunset’s sidewalk, in boots and a leather jacket with fringe.

“Hey, Country DICK!,” says a trying-too-hard punk-come-lately behind me.

The large man stops, turns and in a flash grabs the punk by the collar and presses him hard against the wall.

“Watch it,” says Country Dick Montana, in the deepest voice I’ve ever heard.

He turns and strides away, and I smile at his back.

Last time I saw Country Dick before the cancer got him.

* * *

John Doe is a tall, lanky man with angular features. He plays bass guitar, writes the songs and sings in an almost-country lament, a mournful sound, a voice that conveys pain endured and pain seen, alongside the electric, manic energy of the L.A. punk scene.

As you are facing the stage, John is to the right. Always.

He steps back from the microphone, quite a bit, during the portions of the songs he doesn’t have to sing in. It always made me worry: will he make it to the mic in time? But he does.

When I first saw him, the bass lines were simple and the long sung notes were broken up into smaller bits. Over the years, the bass lines became more complex and the long notes were sung and held.

During harmonies with Exene, he would turn his face to the right, to look at Exene, turning her face to the left and their eyes would lock, and we would all know: they are in love.

In a world of young counter-culture, they were the only married couple we knew.

“i will die for you
i am the married kind
the kind that said i do”

* * *

4 minutes. A very pretty KLM stewardess approaches me.

“Excuse me,’ she says, “are you boarding?”

Don’t for a minute think that I was not aware that I was standing at the biggest goddamn fork in the road in my life. I knew it then and I know it now. Do X, get Y. Do A, get B. I knew what the hell I was doing and, as lawyers would say, I gave my informed consent.

I got on the damn plane and went home.

A wise and cowardly decision.

* * *

I break free of the small antechamber/box-office space just inside the Whisky’s doors and walk into the familiar space. It’s changed, a bit. Someone has bought the place and slapped on a coat of paint, black. And they’ve hung some nice black drapes around the booths.

But the wedge-shaped stage is still the same, as is the floor. Amazingly, there is an open spot right where there should be one, back when I would have been at this show right when the door opened. As you look at the stage, to the left, right under where Billy Zoom would be playing, if he were still with the band.

The girls are excited, this is new to them. I explain the procedure, what to expect. They’re worried about a pit, about what were then called slam-dancers, now known as the mosh-pit.

I explain the difference between the art scene and the hardcore scene and X’s place in the art scene, no slam-dancing here. We talk and laugh.

It’s amazing to me now, but I remember quite clearly thinking to myself: “There is going to come a time in your life, far from here and now, when you’re going to look back and remember this X show and you with three girls—all three adore you—and you’re going to say ‘those were the days’”.

Like I said, wise and cowardly.

* * *

The main stage at the Crystal Ballroom is three floors up, meaning three flights of stairs. James and I begin the ascent. There is a poster on the wall, an X poster, that says “31st Anniversary Tour.”

Look, man, when you’re doing a 31st anniversary show, don’t put the damn show up three flights of stairs.

The crowd is too-young, for the most part. They’re excited, very excited. I’m curious and trying to overhear what they’re saying.

We get a drink and settle in the middle of the pack in front of the stage, standing, like the old days.

And then it dawns on me......why they’re excited.

This isn’t a reunion tour, a chance to see X again for these guys.

Tonight, they are seeing what is to them, to date, mere legend.

* * *

Billy didn't fit in. Of the four, he clearly was the misfit. Combining "mod" and "rockabilly" in a way only an American could, Billy played a big, silver guitar, looked like a young Gene Vincent mixed with Sting in Quadrophenia and never, ever, ever moved from a spread-legged stance on the left of the stage. Ever.

Smiling, stationary, kicking out a rockabilly riff in the middle of a hardcore song. Billy was the anchor, the link to an earlier tradition. Beer, scooters, cute girls and good music. Some things never change.

And, in that stance, Billy kicked out some of the best punk music ever. There are a lot of critical (and not-so-critical) theories as to why X is considered so seminal, so important in the history of the real music/real politics/real art revolt that was "punk." But, I'll clue you in, free of charge.

It was Billy. One never knew if Billy was being himself, or playing a role, or merely going along for the ride. But he brought to X, and thus to the punk scene in general, an outsider's role, an outsider's stance, that has served X well over the years. Let's face it, when Billy left (hey, God bless Tony and Dave, no offense), the band was never the same, no matter how good the sound.

His web site says he's in the amp modification biz these days and playing Gene Vincent tributes at the old Elks Lodge.

God bless him. Billy Zoom. One of a kind. The greatest guitar player you've never heard of.

* * *
It’s some sixteen hours later, and I walk down the jetway into the arrivals terminal in LAX. I pass through customs in 10 seconds and get into the arrivals terminal.

Mom and Dad are there, we get the suitcase, I walk out into the too-bright, too-hot sun and next thing I know I’m back on the 405, where I know the exits and their distance listed on each sign by heart.

“Hungry?,” asks Mom.

“Very,” I say.

So instead of figuring out how to steal a baguette on the way to Neuilly-sur-Seine I’m in El Cholo with a Number One Combo and trying to pay attention to what the family has been doing the past months.

That night, I pass out in the same bed that has been bed since I was two years old.

* * *

X takes the stage and the Whisky crowd explodes. The excitement is mixed with sadness, everyone knows this is X’s last show. Fittingly, it will be where they started, where they became the second house band the Whisky has ever known. (The first, the Doors).

In a nod to the beginning, Ray Manzarek joins them on keyboards on “Nausea”.

At the end, I burst out into the relatively-cold air, alive and impressed with the show.

We end the night, with half the other show attendees at the obvious: Canter’s, on Fairfax.

13 Marlboro Lights and a few drinks later, we call it a night. I drop the girls off, one by one, and I know then in my heart that it’s over.

I drive back home knowing—knowing—that it was time to put away childish things and join the middle class I heretofore had hated and sneered at.

* * *

D.J Bonebreak is just about the best name for a drummer, don’t you think?

One of the things you notice if you see X enough is that D.J. runs the show. And D.J. likes as much time between songs as Tommy Ramone. End, 1-2-3-4, Start.

The beat is hard, solid, a sound that I know is D.J. by hearing, though I can’t explain to you how one person could hit a tom in any sort of distinctive way.

The drum kit is always raised, and, so, Bonebreak is always a bit above the fray. The lynch-pin, the beat-box, solid, driven, driving.

I used to think he made the name up, until one day at Ex Parte I found myself before the day’s motion hearing judge, Judge Bonebreak. Or, as D.J. calls him, “Uncle.”

* * *

You’d think a band that was on a reunion tour would storm the Crystal Ballroom stage to massive applause, but no. First, Billy simply walks on stage with this guitar tech, no fanfare, the 25 people in the audience who recognize him right now yell, BILLY!!!!!

He waves and smiles and gets the silver Gretsch tuned up.

My God, it’s the same Gretsch. (Later on, I would learn that Gretsch is on the verge of releasing the guitar, in a Billy Zoom edition. Unlike most endorsed guitars, this one is designed by the signatory, down to the last detail).

The rest of the band files on. D.J. has lost most of his hair, a solid white band around the ears all that left, Johnny looks like Johnny, except older and, perhaps, more pained, and in the center, as always, is Exene. She says “Hello!”

* * *

Exene isn’t exactly what you’d call a singer, not in any traditional sense. She has a kind of wail, and an insistent punk yell and a particular tone she uses for the lines sung in unison with John.

I hate the guy, but Black Flag’s Henry Rollins got it right when he noted: “The way John and Exene sing together is another amazing thing about X. Individually they're great, but when they sing together, they evoke a beautiful loneliness that's just one of the greatest sounds in American music.”

And, make no mistake, it’s that: American music.

Exene is the same, short, arty, top-heavy, leaning over the crowd to the point where you’d think she topple over. Yes, she’s older, but who isn’t?

I still remember when I heard that her and John had gotten divorced. We were shocked. That fucked up generation never tire of saying they know where they were when JFK was assassinated, well, me, I remember what I was doing when I heard The Couple were no more.

Exene would go on to marry Viggo Mortensen and have a son.

One would think there would be a *bit* of a longer line between a certain Oxford professor’s study and the queen of L.A. punk, but life’s funny that way.

“she wont get out of bed & shake her snakey hair
grab her throw her in the tub
she says "coffee & a piece of pie"
she never wears a dress on sunday or any monday afternoon
the this is no goddamn country
to wander alone
devil doll
devil doll
rags and bones and battered shoes”

* * *

The thing I’ve learned about time is that it is an element, just as sure as steel or plastic or paper.

If you see the Eiffel Tower in paper, you have an idea of what it was, but not really.

It was the same with X, out of time, out of context, out of their element.

But, when the harmonies clicked, and Billy hit the right note and D.J. tossed sweat out of his hair and kept the beat driving, for an instance, I felt transported, back to who I was, back to what now—amazingly—seems a naive and innocent time to me.

X is Los Angeles’ band.

Los Angeles is my blood.

X is my blood.

Random Friday Observations

-- It's Friday, I've taken off my pieces of required Flair and have racked up a few Vespers and got the Ducks-Red Wings taped.

I never, ever thought I'd say something like that and grin like a guy who has hit the lottery, but that's what the practice of law will do to you: it makes a few drinks and a hockey game sound like heaven.

-- I hear some lame-ass S Ct justice is retiring and we're getting a La Raza.

Since European-Americans persist in being the only ethnic group in America NOT organized and lobbying on the basis of race, I am all for this. The worse, the better, whatever it takes to wake my people up.

-- Is it just me, or is the quality of the food one gets in restaurants going down, like waaaay down?

-- Saw X the other night, complete with Billy Zoom. It was odd, like seeing something out of context.

This might be because: 1) I am not 16; 2) I am not in Los Angeles.

You may have other theories.

-- Saw the guys from Spinal Tap play later that same week, "Unplugged and Unwigged" and walked away even more convinced that "A Mighty Wind" should be more acclaimed than "This Is Spinal Tap," though Nigel Tufnel is LEGENDARY, obviously.

-- It took me a while but I finally figured out what a "conservative" is.

A conservative is a person who will sit quietly while the United States Government prosecutes and ruins the lives of enlisted Marines after ordering them into an impossible combat situation but who will sputter in red-faced rage at the mere prospect of some pink-hands Beltway boy being prosecuted for ordering torture.

So, now I know.

Back

Yeah, who cares?

I know, I know. I had a nice website with decent readership, and shut that down. Then I started another, ran into heavy work demands and shut that down. Then I started this one, with an attempt to mix in more light-hearted posts than was my norm...and shut that down.

So, I’m basically writing this post to myself.

But, you know, that’s fine.

I had a meeting today with a man who is extremely successful in the financial world. His career, since 1972, has been centered around doing deals based on a particular Federal cabinet department’s lending programs.

As I listened to him speak, with his insider knowledge and detailed analysis of when the department changed this or that regulation, the financial industry did this in response, rendering the regulation’s intent on its head or spinning it to the finacier’s benefit...

...and it struck me that there are a lot of wealthy men out there whose passion for making money has led them down this path. And there are an awful lot of the rest of us out here, even among the folks laboring in the cubes, who aren’t making money simply because they lack the capacity to stomach bullshit.

The capacity for caring about bullshit is not distributed evenly among men, to say the least. I personally know a number of exceptionally bright men who are not “successful” because they simply can’t abide bullshit.

I sit back and stare at this guy in wonder and realize that the last 35 years of his life has been loan documentation and government regulations and figuring out how to game the system to personal benefit and I stare in awe. A life devoted to bullshit!

A well-compensated life, to be sure, but can you imagine?

I think many of the wage-laborers out there working at the local equivalent of Initech, trading this many hours of their life per day for this amount of dollars, are people who just can’t stomach bullshit.

What’s funny about this is that the successful businessmen types don’t notice this crowd in the same way that a very pretty young women doesn’t notice non-attractive men: they’re just off the radar.

And while that businessman remembers everything about that deal that netted him $54,327.53 back in 1987, the wage-laborers are the guys who show up to work on Monday morning, realizing that over the weekend they had manged not only to forget the substance of most of what they were working on but they have also forgotten most people’s names.

Because it’s bullshit.

A Mexican Song

Upon a busy morning, the old Rudyard Kipling fascist poem leaped to mind, with certain changes necessitated by a different modern condition. With apologies to the bard of empire

Uncle Sam never looks where he treads.
Always his heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Washington never heeds when we bawl.
Her Border Partrol agents pass on -- that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Virtual Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk -- we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you'll see
How we can drag down the State!

We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe killing an oak --
Rats gnawing cables in two --
Moths making holes in a cloak --
How they must love what they do!

Yes -- and we Little Folk too,
We are busy as they --
Working our works out of view --
Watch, and you'll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we'll guide them along
To smash and destroy you in War!

We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you -- you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!

The Roots of the European Union

One of my great plans was the rejoining, the concentration, of those same geographical nations which have been disunited and parcelled out by revolution and policy. There are disbursed in Europe upwards of thirty millions of French, fifteen millions of Spaniards, fifteen millions of Italians, and thirty millions of Germans; and it was my intention to incorporate these several people each into one nation. It would have been a noble thing to have advanced into posterity with such a train, and attended by the blessings of future ages. I felt myself worthy of this glory.

In this state of things, there would have been some chance of establishing in every country a unity of codes, of principles, of opinions, of sentiments, views and interests; then perhaps, by the help of the universal diffusion of knowledge, one might have thought of attempting in the great European family the application of the American Congress, or of the Amphictyons of Greece. What a perspective of power, grandeur, happiness and prosperity would have appeared!

-- Emperor Napoleon I, St. Helena, 1816

Oregon Scene: California's Lesson

Professor Victor Hanson, a veteran of the California State University System, makes a often-missed but crucial point about the politics of race and affirmative action today at the Corner.

As a veteran of two decades on hiring committees in the CSU system, I can attest that the rules and regulations of affirmative action were Byzantine, and not always based on the presumption of a past American history of racist oppression.

Hispanic elites from Chile and Argentina often qualified, whether officially or not. Meanwhile, Mexican-Americans felt that foreigners with work visas were accenting their names and simply piling on, despite their prior privileged lives back home in Santiago or Buenos Aires. Despite Hispanic-sounding last names, no one knew what to with Portuguese and Basques; both groups were usually seen as more affluent than the so-called 'white' minority. A student called Joe Smith could be the son a Mexican illegal alien and still seem far less a minority than Jose Castillo, a fifth-generation Chilean alien who was schooled in the US and decided to stay on.

We had a variety of recent immigrants from the Caribbean as professors and students, almost all from affluent families. One can imagine the problems of others supposedly with 3/4, 1/2, 1/8 black or Hispanic ancestry. What qualifies as a minority, and who ascertains it in the post-Ward Churchill era? Many of our white students with parents from the Oklahoma diaspora rightly claimed American-Indian heritage, albeit in the 1/16th to 1/8th range. The Asian problem was even weirder - 3rd-generation affluent Japanese, no? But the Hmong immigrant of 10 years, yes?

This is a very, very Californian point to make, one that arises out of the objective fact that the scale of the massive demographic and ethnic change currently washing over the United States began decades ago in California. The issue is now picking up steam on the national scale because the exponential nature of numbers have caused the issue to become truly national. From small town in Iowa to big cities in Minnesota, the scale of the change is now causing folks to sit up and take notice, whatever their own political views may be.

Oregon is a typical case of the phenomena.

Until recently an overwhelmingly European-American state, and one with no organic roots to Spain or Mexico, Oregon's reflexive take on racial matters is historically that taken by Americans: it's a Black and White issue.

The mainstream discussion on issues of race assume that there is a majority and a minority. While we Californians (transplanted or otherwise) know and have known for years that the issue is actually one involving a local plurality, which may or may not be White, and many, many different minority groups.

Los Angeles' school district is a case in point. When Californians outlawed public instruction in any language other than English except for certain tightly-restricted exceptions, the rest of the county, and certainly Oregon, assumed this was a vote against "bilingual" education.

In reality, at the time of its passing, the L.A. school district was providing services not just in English and Spanish but also in Korean, Vietnamese, Russian, Japanese, Cambodian, Farsi, you name it.

It became clear to Californians, as it will in time become clear to Oregonians, that given the wide scope of minorities lawfully settling in the United States, any choice other than English quickly sinks government agencies into complete paralyzation and any position other than strict neutrality when it comes to race leads to Byzantine "one-drop" tests that will be gamed by everyone with a drop of preferred ethnicity.

The only possible solution is to push the ethnic spoils system to the point where European-Americans begin to feel an absolute necessity to organize on the basis of race and fight for a share of the government pie or to adopt official and total color-blindness as the absolute bottom line.

And, underneath all of this, is the growing realization in the Black community that their position as "American's minority group" is being rendered moot with each wave of new immigrants.

It's a new world we're entering and only one thing is certain: the status quo cannot hold.

Not even in Oregon.

Oregon Scene: Washington Square Mall (or, How I Learned To Throw It All Away)

They say you shouldn't write when you are angry, when you are too upset. You may say something you regret, something that you haven't really thought through well enough to commit to writing.

I'm going to set that solid advice aside. While I run the risk of anger, not writing what I want is causing me to stop writing altogether.

Saturday evening, my family and I met visiting family for a dinner at a new restaurant located at the Washington Square Mall in Beaverton, Oregon. There is nothing special about this mall, except that we used to go there on early Saturday morning with our first child when he was a baby and walk around. That was 10 years ago, shortly after my arrival in Oregon.

The mall is pretty standard, though it has just undergone an "upgrade" in which two new wings were added, along with a new crop of "specialty" brand-name stores and the kind of upscale mass chain restaurants we were meeting family at that evening.

The restaurant was packed, so we had some time. We waited around a group of benches inside the mall.

I was appalled and sickened by what I saw.

What had once been a pretty solid community has broken up into racial cliques, just like the Southern California that I had left 10 years ago.

Over here, large groups of Chinese--all speaking Chinese, in large, large family groups, ignoring everyone else, pushing people who happen to be in their way, the men doing deals on cell phones. They were all over the parking lot, with the seemingly regulation black Mercedes. Their teenage and young adult sons shuffled--literally, they shuffle their feet--with the haughty air of princes awaiting their inheritance. Expensive "brand name" clothing and imported European luxury cars, America has treated them well.

At this end of the hall, the Muslims--all speaking Arabic, with all the girls in full headscarves, even at age 6 or 7, the women doing the child-watching work while the men sat at different benches, doing deals on their cell phones in bad English. The only thing in common both groups had was a male love for gaudy "brand-name" jewelry. They could have and a Rolex-off competition to see whose was the tackiest. I'd have a hard time picking a winner. In the double strollers, young Muslim boys, who have already adopted the insulting, demanding tone one uses when one addresses women, even if they happen to be your mother.

Here and there, Blacks. Or African-Americans, if you prefer. In groups of five or six, shuffling along in the uniform: baggy pants, oversized "brand name" sports jersey, giant silver or gold chains, oversized baseball caps, menacing expressions. They obviously haven't got the memo that we're approaching a new age here in America. It's the same old shit I've been seeing from that crew since I was a child. They're supposed to be suffering from poverty, yet how to explain that each one of these morons was walking around with literally hundreds-perhaps even thousands-of dollars worth of "brand name," designer clothing and the latest in high-tech electronic gadgets? There is no way these guys are working. Their spoken English was unintelligible.

Then there were the Latinos. Mexicans, mostly. Family after family, almost every woman over eighteen pregnant. Speaking Spanish, keeping to themselves.

This isn't Out of Many, One. This is Balkanization.

The worst of the lot were the European-Americans. Whites, if you prefer. All the Bobs and the Mikes walking around in their standard-issue shorts, sandals and golf shirts. Talking too loudly into cell phones. Their plastic-surgery disaster "wives" trailing along behind them, with one or two mopey, shaggy haired, sullen adolescents trailing along.

At the top of the social pyramid, the white girl. There is no more beautiful. Now there is only "hot". Revealing tops, tight jeans, it's apparently okay now for one's 15-year old daughter to walk around in sheer t-shirts and shorts so tightly cut that if it wasn't for the bikini wax you'd be seeing pubic hair. The entire process revolved around them, walking by, knowing that their desirability has placed them at the top of the social scale. You can see the tightening of female Chinese and Mexican eyes as they go walking by, little asses stuffed into way-too-tight jeans, breasts tautly outlined by sheer fabric.

One girl walked by, the recipient of Black, Muslim, Chinese and sullen White boy stares, with a t-shirt that read "Finally Legal." She was with her father.

The ethos of the stores is stated simply: be hot if you get this stuff. Be fuckable. Our entire moral economy has been reduced to: what will get me laid? If you're a girl, it's hot clothes. If you're a boy, it's whatever the memo says this week you "have" to have. Buy this, or you're done. Look like this, or you are done. And if that fails, money can buy the difference.

In the parking lot, row upon row of cars designed by someone with a passion for gigantism. Giant SUVs, giant cars, giant tow hitches, sunglasses and, of course, the cell phone.

A White family walk by with a boy. He's about 12. He is dressed like a gangster. Complete with chain hanging out of his torn levis and an oversized ball cap with what appeared to be graffiti written on it.

And then you realize: his parents dressed him like this. They dressed their son as a gangster.

And you're standing there and you realize that there is no real life going on here at all. There is a greedy, over-sexualized acquisitiveness, dressed up as life.

There are no discussions, only demands.

There is no decorum. What business is it of yours if this guy is screaming into his cell phone in Chinese, while this one is yelling at her kids in Spanish?

There is no culture. There are cliques, each playing "I've got mine, fuck off."

There is no nation. Just a framework of laws that keep the peace between the cliques as they acquire what their clique demands they acquire.

At the restaurant, as usual, the goal was to stuff as much food in one's fat face as quickly as possible, the wait staff hovering to take away your plate or to ask you "how is everything tasting tonight" the minute any sign of conversation is in danger of breaking out.

At home, I try to write. I'm upset, I'm thinking of my three kids, trying to raise them in the arid desert this once-great nation has become, thinking of how I'm going to navigate my children through a school system inhabited by children of these monstrously de-cultured and depraved people. People who dress their children up as murderers.

When I got home, I happened across a review of the new Batman movie on Jim Kunstler's website.

Goodness has lost its way in the dark night of the American psyche, as might be understandable considering the nation of louts, liars, grifters, bullies, meth freaks, harpies, and tattooed creeps we have become. The best we can bring to this predicament is the low-grade pop therapy that passes for thinking nowadays in educated circles. Any consideration of the heroic is off the menu here. We can't ask that much of ourselves. It's too difficult to imagine.

And then it hit me: We are a nation of louts, liars, grifters, bullies.

The old me used to think, well, only some people are like that. Look at our creativity, our energy, our art, our medical advances, our universities, we're doing well.

No. That stuff is momentum. We're living on the shoulders of giants, walking on streets they built, living lives of mindless consumerism on the riches bequeathed to us by people who knew better. Like the spoiled kid squandering his inheritance, we're pissing it all away.

The society I saw on display at the mall was sickening, a joke of a culture. One that I want no part of.

I recognize that I'm the one with the problem here. It's me that is different. I think I'm right in my judgment, but what the hell good will that do me?

I've been spending the last 20 years hoping for the best, to see some sign of some kind of resistance to our crude and dismal popular culture. Not some giant sign, mind you; just some kind of sign. Some kind of sign that there are people out there resisting this monster we have created.

But I'm done with that. Now, I just want out.