Mallory's Camera

Circo Osario. Tiny Mexican circus making the farmworker rounds – four shows in Marina, two shows in Castroville. We caught them there last night. Town is a weird little place, Artichoke Capital of the World, big tin sign – Welcome To Castroville – spanning a dusty main street whose sole commerce is relegated to gas stations, liquor stores and bait stores doubling as antique shops. Some spectral kinship with Texas and the Alsace region of France in the minds of the Anglo residents. Not many of those though, and we were the only Non-Hispanics at the circus last night.


Circo Osario is a tiny operation, traveling with maybe $25,000 worth of equipment and performing sans tent under open sky. It was very cold, high wind rising from the Pacific, Battle of the Pressure Front Titans. I had fun. Interesting to see entertainment unfiltered through the artificial creation of demand – kids clapping and squealing over jugglers and clowns, big brutal guys you'd expect to find smoking skinny cigars and listening to gangsta rap pounding from the three-grand upgrade to their '64 Chevy speakers leaning forward and biting their knuckles while a guy rides a unicycle across a tight rope.

On the ride back, Ben and I talked about the bookstore some more. In the back seat, Robin was crooning along to the rock 'n' roll in his headphones. "Ah remembah YOU in sixty-three." Robin was not even the sunlight on a mote of dust in '63. When does the awareness of the transient universe start to kick in to consciousness? In terms of dependable revenue the bookstore generates a baseline of roughly $2000/day. Makes sense to revamp the business plan, see if operations could run on slightly less than $2000/day, use that spill-over to ramp up the business. Better plan than borrowing for start-up. I'm under-capitalized. But there's gotta be some way to build from the ground up, no?

Fell asleep, had the most amazing complicated dream which, of course, I can hardly remember this morning except that someone was explaining the relationship of bodies to souls to me, explaining the advantages of incarnation –

Also yesterday went to Ted's memorial service. Sign of respect. Yada yada yada. Most of it was nice, especially the witnessing part where people walked up to the microphone and shared reminiscences. Lots of kids from the karate school took the mike. Super-Karate-Kid James, the 12 year old with the platinum-blond hair and the killer flying front kick and the perfectly expressionless Village of the Damned face talking about how Ted shepherded him through his first pro tournament in Las Vegas. Little red-headed Alex who's probably the most talented kid in the school reading from a piece of paper and breaking down into tears. Mariah telling the story of how she found the school – "I watched Xena on television and I knew I wanted to be just like her so I went to the jujitsu school and they told me I was too young and I started crying and then my dad saw American Karate across the street and said, 'Let's go there,' and I walked through the door and Ted said, 'Welcome.'"

The part that was not so nice was at the end where the preacher took to the podium. He looked like an HerbalLife executive with a bad haircut.

"When you walk into a church it doesn't make you a believer anymore than walking into McDonald's makes you a hamburger."

He paused for effect and beamed down at us.

Uh oh.

It got worse.

Ted did one of those deathbed conversion things, and that I could understand, Tom did it too, my irascible mother wanted to do it. What I couldn't understand was this shyster in his white Pebble Beach golf shirt using Ted's fear of death – everybody's fear of death – as a pretext to hustle the crowd. It was beyond tacky.

I mean – I used to be a cancer nurse. I can do more than imagine what it was like for Ted in those last few days, strung up on plastic tubes, the threat of the ventilator looming, in excruciating pain, losing all control.

"On his deathbed, he ministered to me," beams the preacher. "He. Ministered. To. Me. I asked him, 'What do you want me to say at your service?'" And he told me, 'I want you to ask them two questions. Ask them, 'What will they say about you at your service?' And then ask them: 'Are you ready for the Big Adventure?'"

And then one of the ministerettes leaped up and presented Ted's widow with a valuable parting gift: a 36' by 24' gilt-framed portrait of Ted in the arms of Jesus, after the school of Thomas Kinkaide. My mouth fell open. Fortunately I wasn't sitting next to anyone I knew so when the preacher announced with his big shark smile, "We are setting up a karaoke mike in Jesus Hall so the testimonials can keep right on coming," I could beat a hasty retreat.