BIG SUR POEM
Oddly enough, I'm sitting here asking myself "Where to begin?"
Back in 1998 I made a pilgrimage out to California to see my pal Doc Nagel. He and his wife, Kim Northcutt, had moved out to Modesto, CA, not too terribly long before, and they were (as they are, anyplace they go) in the process of exploring the place and finding its sweet spots. Big Sur, they had determined, was one of them.
This poem traces our travel from Modesto down the Central Valley, across towards the Coast through Salinas (at my insistance, ironically), stopping for lunch at Rosita's Armory Grill (which, we discovered, is the only good reason anyone should ever stop in Salinas), and on into Big Sur. About the time we were entering Big Sur proper (it's a wide and fuzzy line, in my opinion) Chris made the statement quoted atop the bit.
Well, we sat in the sand, watched the sunset, took a bunch of pictures, split a bottle of pretty good wine, and just kind of took it all in. Later we tramped back to the car and headed back towards Modesto, looking the whole time for someplace inviting to stop for food, finally settling on, ironically and terrifyingly enough, Taco Bell. We piled back into the car and plowed on into the night, Kim trying, the whole time, to con us into heading towards San Fransisco, where we could drink 'til closing time and then sleep in the car. (Kim is always full of good ideas.)
We got back to Modesto after midnight, all of us wired from the road, and the seeds of this poem were sown on their PC out of fatigue and whiskey and a belly full of bad road food. I added to it over the next couple of days, and, by the time I left California, I had acheived the single most important element of the poem, the last line: "And so to Hell with your question." Later, back in Charlotte, I mucked about with it, and eventually got it to the shape you see here, which, God as my witness, is the finished form (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).
This is the first of my poems that Chris referred to as an "existential travelogue," and that, essentially, is what it is. It's about the persistance of memory, about the aesthetic sense of California, and about the absurdity of Big Sur. (When I speak of "half-mended bridges," I mean it; all the bridges on the road to Big Sur were under construction; there was only one passable lane on each bridge, and the traffic was regulated by traffic lights that let northbound traffic pass for a while, then southbound. The "assylum," "Rancho Del Sur," is actually El Sur Ranch, the only remaining private property in Big Sur, and it is contained within the largest circuit of ugly chain link fencing in the world.) All the literary references, save those to Steinbeck in Salinas, are just brain candy.
Update: I made a visit to Doc Nagel & wife, June-July, 2003, and of course we had to go to Big Sur. The bridges are fixed; the fences around El Sur Ranch are gone, or at least removed from visibility from the road. The place still attracts flocks of tourists, who come and ooh and ahh over the place before sinking back into self-involved conversation while their kids run about tearing up whatever nature they can get their hands around or poke a stick at. This season brought off-shore fog, which filled the coastline below the cliffs and hung off-shore at the beach, giving the hills the effect of back-lighting and making the place all that much more inspiring and surreal. Doc mentioned seeing a picture of Hunter Thompson at Big Sur, snapped by some famous photographer or other, seated at his Royal manual. I imagine him staring out at the sea. My bet is Doc Gonzo was stymied by the place.