December, 31st, 2010.

Good question today, this comes from Luna from Lima, Peru.

About three years ago I was walking down Addison St. in Berkeley on a cold fall night, alone. I was pretty blue. Mairrage ended, kids traumatized by this fissure in their lives. Frankly, I was just frickin’ lonely as hell. I had my hands deep inside my jacket pockets, an old bomber jacket I lucked into at a thrift. Real patina from age, worn- in shearling lining. I started thinking of who might have worn this coat, a pilot, a sailor who travelled the world as a Merchant Marine? I started to travel a bit in my mind when a voice drifted into my head out of nowhere, “My name is the Baron Phillipe de Mouton Cadet Rothschild and I crashed my plane into the Baltic sea in 1925, was saved by making a deal with the Devil, and this is how my story begins.”

Now, I’m no Joan of Arc. When I “heard” this voice, I think it was a mix of what I needed to hear,  my imagination, and  the spirits and Muses in the ether. I needed guidance and wisdom, more than could be found in a book of philosophy. Maybe I just needed a friend.

This Baron with the long name morphed into The Great Zamboni, who has morphed into Zambones, or as he likes to be called now, simply the Zambonesman. (“‘Great‘ sounds rather silly” he explained yesterday to me “like I am going to pull rabbit from hat.”) Gradually it started to become less about my own problems. I started to perform this Zambones in front of others, and I found he made people laugh, and sometimes seemed to enlighten them a little, or at least lighten them up a bit.

So here I am, three years later and the Zambonesmen continues to be one way I navigate through this world.

As the year ends, I want to thank you for visiting this virtual place, and I hope that  it gives you some very non-virtual guidance, laughter, or something.

I wish you much joy this year, Zambonesman has flown private jet back to Estonia to be with special friend for the night at Estonian Hilton. They have New Years package with champagne and buffet breakfast, only 24 Estonian Kroons.

Today I turn forty-three, may the fates choose to keep me going, and you, a long time in health.

Today, Sue from Mobile, Alabama, asks, ” is it a blessing that my boyfriend who wanted  kids with me, has suddenly changed his mind?!”. Sue also tells me she is 40 plus, and wishes to have kids if she can.

Interesting question Sue, and also interesting punctuation. You use a “!” and a “?” side by side, which says to Zamboni (because I myself have a 12 year old daughter so I am knowing something about texting syntax) that this new feeling from your boyfriend has more than one side for you.

As does having the children. In Estonia we have a saying, which translates roughly as,  “if you have no of children, may you have many several sheep, for your bed will be cold.” Children are a great comfort. When they come into your life, as a blessing, what you thought was your number 1 purpose and goal in the universe gets bumped to number 2.  You always know at any given time, what your life is about: caring for these kids.

And of course, on the “?” side- there is much difficulty. It is also a great weight, a great responsibility that we are not always prepared for. As Jerry Seinfeld says, “make no mistake, they are here to replace us.” They make us see our own mortality quite clear. Plus, as with daughter of Zamboni, they can ruin vacation by crying in uncontrollable fit and screaming in public place like you are trying to murder them, until you finally try spanking which only makes it worse by increasing crying volume and making you feel like monster. It aint easy and there is no handbook.

But to answer your question, is it “blessing”….?

Yes, and I’ll tell you why.

Your boyfriend has changed his mind because you alone are enough for him. He no has need for kids to make your love complete. But also perhaps because he is scared; kids make us men grow up, and we very deep wish never to grow up. This why we buy Corvette and try to date 18 year old when we are in Mannopause.

The real blessing here is not his decision, but the love you have. Accept his “sudden” decision with total tranquility. Show no signs of disappointment. This will shock him, but show him that it is him you love, not the future child he might procreate. We men are also insecure in this way.

At the end of the day, when your love is healthy, a child may come of it. We all know, Zamboni most of all, it is easy to make a child. Making a home of love, into which a child would be blessed to enter, that is other thing- and  greater. Make that home Sue, the best you can, and if child is meant to be, it will be.

I sincerely hope answer Zamboni has given helps in some way -even a small smile is a blessing- and I wish you luck.

Just don’t overthink it.

I once made love to an Italian peasant woman with a face of your most loved leather shoe. Though she was not young, she had the lightest heart of any woman I have ever met. Her smile was innocent and seemed to have its own life and moods. Standing next to Mona Lisa you would have asked, “oh, she is your sister?”

After one of our embraces in the hay barn, she saw my soul was troubled like a boiling pot of Minestrone, restless, jumpy. She led me to the edge of the vineyard, and told me:

“Walk. Just walk..”

I started to walk through the vines, and three days later many truths were hanging before me like grape cluster.

So  my friends, find this place, or any straight line, maybe 5th avenue, the beach, a traintrack, and begin.  The Greeks had a whole school of philosophy called the Peripatetics, which translates as, “guys who walk.”

And if it is cold, rainy, it is even better, as this makes glass of Scotch tastes niiice.

This question is  difficult for me, for you see, Zamboni is timeless agelss spirit so there are many “good old days” to choose from for me. I might say talking with Socrates in 398 B.C., or backstage with Sinatra at the Sands, teasing Sammy Davis.

I ask this question of  my human vessel, Jordan Winer. He shows me picture from his album of family photos and says, “1961.”

I ask him why this represents the “good old days” to him, in hopes it helps us define that term. It is strange because he was not even alive when picture is taken. The baby is his oldest brother. He explains:

“My parents had just moved to San Francisco. That’s a cable car going up their hill. They’d come 3,000 miles from Miami, a place of flatness, homogeniety. They land in San Francisco, a sunny city of seven hills,  of the Jefferson Airplane, Allen Ginsberg, Jazz. That car you see in the corner, real wood, a Morris Minor- that was theirs. I’d give my left arm for that car.”

His eyes get sort of misty as he looks at photo  with frayed edges. He continue.

“See the man on the end of the cable car, that tie, that thin tie? That style. It all still made sense in 1961. Men wore suits, ties. Mothers looked happy. Kennedy was alive. Even below the guy with the tie, a simple almost beautiful Pepsi ad. Just a red, white and blue cap… a caption I can’t read, but probably a hopeful sounding one.”

In answer to your question, Anonymous, the good old days are now, always now, but perhaps only when now is looked back on from great distance.

Tennessee Williams said that the past is all we have, that the present is too, too ..something… I forget how he put it- fleeting?

I apologize. I was drunk when he said this to me.

You are in the middle of the best of days. Strange, no?

I have heard  a great Pirate captain said once that what kept him going was his desire to possess the horizon.