February 8, 1989. Letter from my Mom.

dearest son,

how are things? did you see princess di when she was in new york?

my mother called me and said “betty, i had the most wonderful surprise – steve called me
from new york!”. she never had a call from new york in her whole life and was very thrilled.
thank you for brightening her day.

“where we love is home. home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts”
– oliver wendell holmes

sometimes i do miss you and your brothers so much. it’s sad having you all live so far away.
my family means so much to me – we love it so when we’re all together.

love,
mom

sister-belle

Christmas, 1962. Walnut Creek, CA

my parents ordered two matty mattel dolls for christmas in 1962 – one for my
brother mike and one for me. they received one matty mattel doll and one sister
belle doll by mistake. there wasn’t enough time to send the sister belle doll back,
and they figured i was young enough that i’d be fine with it, so they gave it to me.

sister belle talks when you pull her string. these are some of the things she says:
it’s time to eat
let’s play house
i love you
sing me a song
please take me with you
do you like me?
i’m glad we’re friends

my mom says i really liked her. i don’t remember playing with her, but years later i
do remember my parent’s having a friend over, and their daughter was playing with
her and she stuck her gum in the dolls hair. i got pretty upset about it, so i must
have still had some attachment to it.

May, 1996. Berkeley, CA

when my daughter was born i was working for a company that gave six weeks paternity leave. i thought i’d spend it tending to erica so she could tend to the baby. i’d heard that that was how it worked.
it turned out that erica’s mom and sister and friends were all eager to help, and babies sleep a lot, so i was left with a lot of free time.
i decided to write a screenplay.

writing a screenplay is very different than writing song lyrics. there was a big learning curve. eventually i finished a draft that i knew was rough, but at a hundred and twenty pages it felt like an accomplishment.

i had a friend who had a friend in los angeles that worked for a production company. they’d just produced their first indie feature and it was doing well. i sent them a copy of my screenplay and, surprisingly, they liked it. they gave me notes on how to improve it, and i started revising.

that’s when i realized how hard it was to get from a promising first draft to a finished script. after a couple revisions i felt like i was losing track of where i was going with it. it was a personal story and i didn’t know how to craft it into a fictionalized one.

not sure what to do i decided to take a break from it. that was sixteen years ago. still not sure what to do.

Summer 1978. Woodland, CA

the summer after high school my brother and i got jobs working the graveyard shift
at a pvc pipe factory. we were each put in charge of one of the production lines.
pipe that came off the line fell into a large metal rack. when the rack got full you
fastened the bundle of pipes with a steel band and rolled it into an open area for the
forklift to pick up. the rack was heavy and hard to maneuver.

as you waited for the forklift the new pipe coming off the line fell onto the floor.
the longer it took to get your bundle picked up the more pipes piled up.
stopping the line was not an option.

before the forklift could take the bundle the inspector had to inspect it. he’d peer
down each pipe looking for air bubbles, then measure the thickness with his
micrometer. if anything was out of sorts he’d yell “bad pipe!”.

if that happened you had to cut the steel bands, pull out the offending pipe or pipes,
replace them with good ones, reband the bundle, and wait for the inspector to
come back.

by the time you got your empty rack back to the line the floor could be covered
with pipe. you’d scramble to load them up, filling the rack, then start the process
over. just like in a nightmare.

it was the most stressful and exhausting job i’ve ever had.

March 20, 1968. Walnut Creek, CA

when i was seven i had to have an operation. i was out of school for a week. the
teacher had each of my classmates write me a letter. my mom saved them all.
here are a few:

dear steve,
i hope you are having fun in the hospital. one time my mom went to a hospital to
see her friend and i watched daktari.
love, stan

dear steve,
dear steve i hope you will come back soon and steve we started a new book
steve we have been missing you. and steve we made flowers for art.
love, susan c.

dear steve,
i know what it’s like in the hospital, you get ice cream and licwold. do you like to
go to the hospital? i do. i went to the hospital twise.
love, kim

dear steve,
i hope it is nuthing searyis. where want to have you back. steve you are the best
cind in our class.
love, david warren

dear steve,
yesterday we made a girl and boy for our board. now we have a hole board of
misery stories. there are some sad faces of misery too.
love, carol

December 12, 1995. Puerto Angel, Mexico

when we got married in mexico the ceremony was performed by a man who did
not speak english. the translator was a young woman who seemed inexperienced.
she struggled in places, and it wasn’t always clear what we were agreeing to.

afterwards we were given a sheet of paper titled: Rights And Obligations Of Marriage.
here are some excerpts, typos included:

civil marriage is the only way to initiate and legalize the family and to preserve the
human race, and to try and change the ordinary imperfections of every human
being who is not able to change by himself.

the couple must and will be sacred to each other.
the man’s main attributions are his courage and his strength, and also must
provide food and protection to the woman, always treating her correctly, gently
and with generosity.

the woman’s contributions are her beauty, compassion, intelligence and
tenderness.
each one must respect, trust, fidelity and tenderness.

both must proclaim that what was unexpected from each other before the union will not affect
the relationship.
both of them must be wise detain their faults, always show respect.

in the name of law the society, i declair you married under the law of the civil authorities with
all the rights and obligations that this institute puts at my charge that is the only way to found
and legalize the family and is important that you preserve the family firmly, defending it
against dangers that could rise its stability.

 

January 4, 1988: Journal Excerpt. Sacramento, CA

i always start writing when i’m very tired
a bad habit i’ve gotten into
my eyes are burning

it’s a new year and i’m feeling anxious. the 80s coming to an end. time passing.
i’m 27 years old – what am i doing and why?
who can know

i hear sirens. my new old-man neighbor, who replaced the usually intoxicated
french harp playing old-man neighbor, said “hello, neighbor” to me today.
his name is joe. he’s eighty years old and has a chihuahua that yaps.

saw the sad lady this morning. wearing the same brown sweater and old sagging
nylons with holes. the same blue tennis shoes and dirty house coat, with a
look of unbearable sadness.
she walks back and forth in front of her apartment; she never goes too far
either way down the sidewalk. always looking / calling for her cat.

right now i’m rubbing my feet together to get them warm. june, my friend in new
york, laughs when i say it’s cold here: “i guess you’ll have to wear your
windbreaker with the lining”.

Things That Don’t Last Long Enough:
hot shower in the morning
creative flurry
feeling of accomplishment

Photo circa 1963. Mt. Tamalpais

when i look at pictures of myself when i was very young, three or four or younger,
i can’t conjure up what it was like to be that person.
there may be things about the photo that i recall; places, events, objects, but i
still feel like i’m looking at a kid that i know was me, but i don’t really know him.

i wish i could talk to him. ask him some questions. hang out together for a day.

October 1988. Bronx, New York

the cab from the airport took me to student housing for albert einstein college of
medicine in the bronx. deborah’s friend chris lived there; she said she was never
in her room and i was welcome to stay. she left the key on top of the fire
extinguisher in the hall.

i set my things down inside and stood at the big window staring out at the city for
a long time. i’d been so focused on leaving that it just started to hit me: “what the
fuck have i done?”
then an empty homesick aching

i got a drink of water and sat on the bed. there were no chairs. it felt uninhabited.
the floor was dusty.
there were a few books in the corner, i picked one up – “house of god” – and
started reading it. when i put it back down it was dark and i was hungry.

i looked in the refridgerator, knowing that if i found any food it wouldn’t be right
to eat it. there was nothing there.
i put on my jacket, got my wallet and the key, and went out.
everything was so unfamiliar. i walked several blocks – carefully keeping track of
my route – before finding a corner market that was open.
i bought some saltines, peanut butter, and a beer, and walked quickly back

i stayed there for two weeks until i found a sublet
i never saw chris

June 23, 1995. Kaiser Behavioral Medicine, Oakland CA

after moving to berkeley i was really struggling with having to start over.
with no job and being an unknown in the music community, i was doing temp work
and going to open mic nights. it all felt like a huge setback.
i started getting depressed, so i made an appointment to see someone in kaiser’s
behavioral medicine department. a therapist.

she told me i had a “peter pan complex”, and referred to my music ambition as a
“rock star fantasy”.
i left feeling worse

i recently requested a copy of her notes from the session.
maybe her observations were accurate, but the way she presented them to me at
the time was not at all helpful.

here are some excerpts from her notes:

34-year-old wm, single but lives with fiance
musician: guitar, sings, writes
obsessed with grandiose musical dreams
has pursued career in music full-time since college, which has yet to pan out
presents with high anxiety w/ somatic symptoms
manicky defenses – hard to relax

explored family scripts, unmet dreams
his style is intellectualizing: “yes, but”
value of self without stardom? sees alternative as being a loser

recently produced CD on credit card $
understands parallels to gambling – can’t stop now
youngest of three sons

10.25.95
no further contact