Discography

Listening to Thelonious Monk transports me to Dave’s house in El Cerrito, Berkeley? when we were in college, sky blue carpet and two enormous cans of hominy holding up his speakers. There is a picture of Hugh in a cowboy hat vacuuming in that house; it must have been when they were moving out because there isn’t furniture, just a quarter acre of that blue carpet. A few years ago I googled Hugh and discovered he is the resident rabbi at a Jewish high school in the Bay Area. Once we smoked a joint and he cut my hair – a terrible job, slanted like a flight of stairs. The great thing about that room I lived in at the time was you could open a backdoor and sweep the hair – anything -- right out. I remember in Iowa sitting on Rick’s back porch as he swung his arm back and threw a chicken leg bone he’d been gnawing on right into the creek that bordered that row of houses. He didn’t even have to stand up. My twin bed in that room fit right in an alcove under a tiny sink. I could pour a glass of water by leaning over. A homeless man named Berkeley Bob, a cantankerous mumbler with a yellow beard and a tweed sports coat, slept right outside my window. You never know what your memories will be like until you have them.