Postcards From Hollister # 8

Litany

January 13th, 2007
c. 9:00 p.m.

It was a brisk day in Hollister. A soft but cold wind blew in from the ocean. It was sunny but cool.

I am writing some promotional material for my friend Manuel who hopes to make it big in the Spanish rock business (yes, it does exist).

The barrio is finally getting a Starbucks. The sky is falling.

The last light bouncing off of the hills burns sadness into the eyes. It is best not to look too closely.

Telenovelas are more addictive than crack. Don’t watch them.

And if you saw it on Spanish television, don’t buy it. It doesn’t work.

It would have been cool if Nietzsche had been a Christian.

But if you do watch them, notice how the most attractive women are always in supporting roles, not in the lead ones.

It would have been cool if Jungmann had been an illiterate Christian.

“Collapse of the day-spring / Spilling off into fog….”

Beyonce and Mary J. Blige really annoy me. A lot.

“Meshed into the glow of fallow fields…”

So does Ludacris. A disgrace to the game.

Mexicans don’t really talk. They just sort of stare at each other and fire off clichés.

People in the gym should just take a picture. It lasts longer.

We are deeply superficial. That’s what it is.

“Cubrí mis ojos con mis manos…”

The Catholic Church in this country is just the Episcopal Church with better spin doctors.

VH1 plays mostly lame videos.

The Mexican guys here take hustling to new heights. I saw one selling some small toy horses. Who would buy those things?

Why can’t I stop watching MTV? I think they cancelled “Pimp My Ride”.

I mean, I went to a Mass recently where the priest used a Eucharistic prayer that was either written by him or some other liturgical spaz.

My sister likes to listen to a station that plays both hard rock and hip hop. Pure genius. An idea whose time has come.

“You are the shade of a thousand shadows…”

Bishop Sylvester Ryan is finally retiring. Purgatory is coming to an end.

“Refreshment for a summer rain…”

We are also getting another Subway restaurant. All this and heaven too?

Or is it the beginning of hell?

San Jose is getting a real Indult Mass every week. Another trap for liturgical dinosaurs?

“Sobre el agua, se dibuja una historia ya dormida…”

To see the ones you love suffer is far worse than suffering yourself.

“No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte…”

God has a poetic sense of timing, at least in my life.

“Clavado en una cruz y escarnecido…”

“Quare me dereliquisti…”

Crashing, crashing down, cold white fingers over the mountains.

Saturday night in Hollister. Pulsating boredom. Tranquil joy.

Caught in headlights, half-abandoned streets.

Be thankful. Silence. Routine. Solitude. Night.

In the Chevron at Casa de Fruta, a man comes in to buy a cup of coffee.

In a house a block over, they are listening to KDON and wondering when Chuy is going to get there.

They light up another joint. That’s as illegal as things get around here.

We will be praying the rosary in about twenty minutes. Gosh, I don’t have a life.

Somewhere they are having fun.

Somewhere a monk is singing to God.

I hope I don’t die an old bachelor.

I hope I don’t get cast into the gaping jaws of Hell.

Sometimes I wish that English had not been my first language.

One firmament full of cold stars. A joy fallen, swelling. Not yet.

Between the white lines, passing houses whose lights are going out.

Her eyes hide more than they reveal.

Too many departures. Another might just do me in.

Hair hazel, burnt like the autumn sky. Ecstatic frustration, hoisting me up…

I have to get packing. I have to pick up my sister from work at eleven.

Slight figure: full, warm, a voice cracking like a delicate layer of ice…

There will be plenty of time tomorrow.

I say good-bye and turn away. Barren branches, barren flight, somber traveler…

I am not going to stop by that store and buy Mentos.

“Es un reloj roto, tu corazón, solo….”

On top of Vista Hill Park. Hollister is a quilt of green and yellow light. It does not know itself.

She does not know herself. Barren… a barren terracotta landscape in January…

Broken shards, spread over this valley, on the pampa, in the desert, on the mountains…

“Para que no llegue tarde al amor.”

Hope in that last ray. Hope in that memory. It all seems so small now….

For another height is before your feet
So again and again
Ascend.