You Know You Want One

Sorely Remiss

From the 1969 LP, "Accept No Substitute". This is the only film of D&B on you tube and the only music video they ever filmed for Electra records. Delaney & Bonnie first met Eric Clapton when the pair served as Blind Faith's opening act. Prior to their marriage and collaboration, Delaney had been a well-regarded LA session musician, and Bonnie had the distinction of being the only white Ikette.

What was I thinking. This, I hope, sets things right.

Thanks, Dean.

the post formerly titled "When This Battle Is Over"

Poetic Justice

I remember that tuna fish and no longer cringe

I refer you to Pa Meloney's perfect, funny video, Executive Day Labor ...

In remembrance of the countless hundreds of men who waited on the town square every morning, years ago—meaning, before gentrification, before the truly wealthy laid a jet landing strip and killed off everything that wasn't pretentious—from whose pleading-eyes numbers my then-husband would pick the labor we needed; work on the ranch was never-ending.

I couldn't say what it was we ranched; it depended on the decade and the tax laws. In the Eighties it was for a while, of all things, alpaca, who are the dearest creatures, cat-like in many ways. FOB from Chile, one of whom I tamed, calmed, became close to. Delivered her nitwit sister's baby when the nitwit circled incessantly, trying to see what the hell was happening to her butt. Nothing dearer than the mewing cry of a baby alpaca ...

But I failed to pay attention, midst all that life, and some death too. These animals were commodities, the tax-shelters of the Very Rich, direct courtesy Ronald Reagan, and though we weren't of the Very Rich, the ex was workin' hard to get there. The VR were into way-exotic animals. You don't even want to know. Like collecting and trading anything. The more you spent, the less you paid in taxes. Disgusting.

I wasn't supposed to come to love Zia, a small and frightened creature who eventually ate from my hand ... and she wasn't supposed to come to trust me. One day we were living that life, boom, the next they were gone. Carted away without comment, replaced, I think, by diamonds. The next new tax dodge. I can't remember it all, perhaps because it made no sense—although it suited the ex just fine, living beings just interchangeable pieces on the board of his life (not that there were any others. Lives.) (I suspect more women are married to men like this than they know, telling themselves it's just narcissism. It ain't.)

Remember when I used to talk about Broken? Yeah, you, who has read every word since '04 (there will be a quiz.) This is some of what I meant.

Later, I will write about the Mexicans. About the old man—too old to be working this way, but there you are—and the son who watched over him. About the tuna fish sandwiches I made for their lunch, which were so quietly, graciously eaten (what did I know.) About the old man's master stone masonry and the beautiful garden wall he left behind. I remember that tuna fish and no longer cringe. We were all young once, and stupidly, deeply sincere.