October 16th. Here we are in the midst a very tense Presidential Campaign. People out there are living on doom and gloom. They need to know things will work out for the best. In short, they crave a happy ending. Or at least some kind of resolution…

I got nothing here to brighten your picture.

The worst candidate will probably win.

Life sucks and then you die.

If you’re searching for truth and beauty, I’m in the wrong direction…

I’m thinking back 48 years

1976. Chico State University. My alma mater. I’m thinking of a college pal of mine, Stanford Rivera, a real bright Dude with a police record. He kept his dark past to himself. The way I found out, I got him a job with the campus police where I worked part time answering the phone after hours. It was a pretty easy job. Hardly anybody called after nine p.m. Crackpots called wanting to know some Professor’s number and I’d tell them call back during regular hours. If they got pissed I’d just hang up. I’d get calls from the dorms. Usually about some Prick causing trouble. “He’s pounding on my door! He’s drunk and he’s pounding on my door! Do something! Please!” I’d tell her somebody’s on the way, pronto, and I’d radio Garcia, the night shift sergeant. A Big Dude. He’d drive over there and handle the drunk.

Amazing how few calls I’d get. Nothing else to do but sit all night at a desk. Do my homework. Lots of homework in college. I got most of mine done sitting at that lonely phone desk.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, Stanford Rivera. I got him a job doing the same thing. Man, was he happy. He needed the money on account of his girlfriend got tired of footing the bills. And he liked the idea of getting paid to do his homework. But within a month he was gone. What happened, the Chief did a background check on Stanford’s ass. Garcia told me. “Chief had to cut your pal loose. Seems he did two years at Soledad Prison. Armed robbery.” I can still see Garcia shaking his head. “What’s the matter with you, Kid? We can’t have a convicted felon working for the campus police…”

Come to find out, Stanford, a clean-cut Preppy, had a low-rent sleazy side. He’d been wigged out on booze and L.S.D. and decided to rob a Seven Eleven. Used a pellet gun.

Robbing a seven eleven wasn’t too bright of an idea if you ask me. A pellet gun! But the fact that he had this dark past, this low-rent sleazy side to his nature, ingratiated me to him. Chico state had an abundance of prepoids. Frat Rats. Clean collar kids from nice homes thinking they’re special. I liked Stanford way more because he had a dark past. I warmed to the guy as a result of his, shall we say, white trash propensities…

In Prison he’d managed to turn his life around. Got his record partially expunged. Which allowed him to pursue a higher education. He was a man bent on getting ahead, legitimately. He was always the top of his class. Which made him kind of Intimidating. He liked to brag about getting through Law School and joining the corporate world.

We were never best friends. But I hung with him for some years after I left Chico. He graduated and moved to San Diego where he attended Grad School at the State University. I was already down there, doing the same thing. He liked to hang with us at Marine Street Beach or at Wind-An-Sea Beach. Wild Nick couldn’t stand him. “Why do you hang out with that piece of shit?” I had no answer for Nick, unless it was to say, why do I hang out with you? I knew what he meant. Nick was a lot of things, but one thing he was not was a phony.

Stanford ended-up at Pepperdine Law School. Passed the bar. Moved to Chicago and made a comfortable if not immense fortune. He’s now retired and living in the San Juan Islands. I never hear from him because I stopped speaking to him more than thirty years ago. I hear about him from a mutual friend. A friend with a genial nature who’s always held Stan Rivera in high regard. Intelligence and charm have a way of impressing genial people.

I’ve always considered myself no better than anybody else in this world. I like to think I can find something about you I like no matter how bad you are. Which is why I’ll befriend anybody. Even those with a repellant nature. Especially if he or she can entertain me. Stanford Rivera was one of those.

Stan liked to pontificate. I mean he could talk your head off on a myriad of subjects.

He would use the phrase Truth and Beauty a lot. As apposed to Hopelessness and Despair. The world, in Stan’s opinion, was one of Hopelessness and Despair. Those who believed in Truth and Beauty were saps. Suckers. Losers. The only way to get ahead, he claimed, was to reject Truth and Beauty. Do what you need to do to get ahead in the world. Do it with a clear head. And to do that, you need to embrace the Hopelessness and Despair. Embrace it. Accept it.

I got a kick out of Stan’s intensity. Listening to him was like watching a garbage truck compactor demolish a wad of broken furniture. I’ve never taken my life so seriously. Not to Stan’s level. I’m one of those genial natures. Maybe this was the thing that kept me interested in Stanford Rivera. He took his life seriously. To the point where he was often confronted with this tension he felt between Truth and Beauty, and it’s opposite, Hopelessness and Despair…

At one point in our association Stan decided I was the guy to hear his confessions. He wanted me to know about his past. His early days. He wanted me to know about his relationship with his father. How his father often treated him with disdain. He’d talk about his father, a disbarred lawyer who’d quit drinking after losing his money and had gone off and written a novel. He spoke of his father as if he were a villain. He felt no affection for his father. A man he considered a failure. He viewed his past life, all of his life, in fact, in terms of winning and losing.

At one point he revealed his attachment to his Mother. How his mother had been the greatest symbol of Truth and Beauty he’d ever known. “My mother and I were very close,” he revealed. “All the grimness and despair of the world vanished when we were together.”

I wasn’t particularly interested in Stan Rivera’s mother, or his father. But He liked to talk and he had a sense of drama. He somehow held my attention with these stories. One day I learned how his mother had drowned on a lake while out on a boat with his father. He blamed his father for this boating accident. Even though it had proved to be an accident.

“My father robbed me of my mother.” he cried. “You have no idea how this has impacted my life. No idea. You’re life is easy. You don’t have burdens like I do!”

Stan Rivera’s opinion of my life was based on the information I shared with him. Which was very little. I mostly listened while he mostly talked about himself. The truth is, my past was considerably more squalid than his. As a matter of fact, I probably have more experience with Hopelessness and Despair than anything in Stan’s comfortable middle class background.

The difference between us could be measured in terms of Geniality.

One day…I think it was the day we were hanging out at the Pacific Beach Bar And Grill. An establishment long since out of business. But back then it was a thriving joint. Packed with young people like ourselves. We were having a drink at the corner bar. We were having many drinks. At one point in our rambling discussion Stanford told me his Mother was the only woman he ever truly loved…

“Well, that’s nice, Stan.”

“No you don’t understand.”

“What?”

“We were lovers.”

He told me how he’d slept with his mother.

“Get out of here. You had sex with your own mother!”

“It wasn’t my idea. It only happened once.”

Then he confessed it happened quite often.

“And I’ll tell you another thing,” he blurted out. “My Old Man caught us once. He caught us doing it and I beat the shit out of him. He was too wasted to fight back. I mean I really beat the hell out of him. That’s how I know he drowned my mother. He took her out on that boat and he pushed her overboard. Because of us. Because of what we did together…”

At this point I stopped finding his stories interesting.

I was beginning to smell bullshit. I told him so. And he laughed. He laughed a long ass laugh. Said he was just fucking with me. None of it was true. He just wanted to see If I’d believe him.

Gauge my suckerability.

Could be he was telling the truth.

Anyway, I hope I’ve lifted your spirits a bit with my little half-assed story. I don’t know who Stanford Rivera plans to vote for. If I recall, he had democratic leanings. I’m assuming he’s a Harris fan. But I may be wrong. He’s had a career in the Business world and that experience has a way of affecting one’s political beliefs. Do I care who he plans to vote for? Not in the least. I haven’t spoken to the man in over thirty years.

As for Truth and Beauty?

Maybe this will help

I snapped this photo this morning upon leaving my boat.

That’s the thing about rainbows. They leave you with a dose of hope. Kind of like believing in Truth and Beauty.

Which I do.

I actually do…