Tonight I drove my mother and her friend to South Coast Rep to see a play, and had a beer at Karl Strauss.

I talked to the bartender and the guy next to me at the bar and they made sense about politics, which was refreshing. In particular they were both against the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8. Not because they had much interest in LGBT people. In fact, they were both a bit nervous about gay people. They just didn’t want to go out of their way to be jerks to people for no good reason. One guy had a girlfriend who was religious and backed the thing, and he said “Why should she care? They’re not coming to her church. Just leave it alone.”

Life storms lately. The election, the crazy financial crash, family and friends having serious troubles, my own minor but constant troubles. Safe harbors elude everyone. It reminds me of the early 1990s, when everything lacked: money, safety, calm, health.

I dream about Heaven sometimes. I’m in some unknown but friendly place, at a table with food and drink. Friends and enemies are there, and people I’ve lost. We’re all relieved because all THAT bullshit is behind us, and we’re getting along.

Tonight at the bar was a little of that. Thank you.

I love this song.

I first heard it while at the Miller’s Outpost jeans store on 17th Street in Costa Mesa, California. I was probably shopping for back-to-school jeans or something.

I can still see the whole store in my mind, the shelves full of jeans against the back wall in every color in variety especially. Boot cut, easy fit, black, white, dark and light blue, with that distinctive denim smell.

The terror of knowing what this world is about…