A Big Day Yesterday

Tobey Mathews Live!

First, yesterday Tobey and I got together. We really got together. We got it together.

It was a true bonding experience. Man-to-man. Person-to-person. Grins all around. One of the best experiences you could ever hope to have.

We drove around and spoke about John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. We spoke about his life, and his friends and his poetry and music, and I spoke a bit about mine.

We broke bread—quite literally by eating the soup bowls at Panera Bread in Cupertino.

We had lessons about microeconomics and business all afternoon. I told him about Vroom's Expectancy Theory, which I'm studying in graduate school for my MBA, and how that explains human motivation and personal drive. We went over inventory turns and theories of supply. (Demand and demand generation will come down the pike.) We worked on half-a-dozen things to make his life more professional, positive, presentable.

We celebrated the beginning of his own blog. His mother called and was delighted to hear about all we had accomplished in one day together.

We drove around listening—really listening—to Bob Marley's Legend album on the way home. We spoke about what the impact of the suicide of others meant to each of us. I invited him to come with me on The Overnight this summer. Other people can donate money. I thought it would be good for his soul if he wanted to walk on through the night. Especially after listening to "No Woman No Cry."

Good friends we have had, oh good friends we've lost along the way
In this bright future you can't forget your past
So dry your tears I say
...
My feet is my only carriage
So I've got to push on through
...
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright

Amen, Bob!

We listened to those words, and many other words of Bob Marley and the Wailers. We talked about history and how vital those years of Bob Marley's life were in history. How Biblical his lyrics were. Now we were making history, and we knew it. We had great grins on our faces. Legend is a great CD. I lent it to Tobey, along with a few books on King Arthur.

We parted each other's company to the transforming and transcendental strains of Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle. (Gotta love KFOG.)

Emma & Pete & Liz Perle & Luis Ignatio Nava & Books, Inc.

After dropping off Tobey, I met with Tatiana Emma Scutelnic, a Bay Area photographer also participating in Flowers in the Cracks.

Together we saw Liz Perle talk about Money, A Memoir at Books, Inc. I'll get a review of that event posted in due time. I took copious notes on my Treo, and even snapped a few pictures.

Emma and I had dinner at Pasta? on Castro Street in Mountain View. During dinner we spoke about many things, from Adam Smith and Karl Marx, to the concepts of extended reciprocity. Emma spoke about her family. I shared some of my own personal history.

We considered Liz Perle's book some more. Liz Perle had saliently pointed out how important, and at the same time unimportant, thoughts about money are to women. (What was also important to us both at the time was dinner! I had the chicken. Emma the spaghetti. It was very good!)

After dinner we went back to Books, Inc. to go over photographs Emma has taken for the project. Before we settled down to work, the man at the next table introduced himself. I had spied a cover of The Economist he was reading, about the war: Iraq, At War With Itself.

We spoke about the article I wrote: No Dog Tags Allowed.

His name was Luis Ignacio Nava. A gymnastics coach. He was wearing an old faded jacket from the US Olympics Training Center. He spoke about his life in Mexico. He spoke about his past coaching at SJSU. He was passionate about Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, and showed me a DVD he had of them both and another speaker from 2003, just at the start of the US-Iraq war. I could tell there was a great deal of the story I hadn't heard about his past. He was very pro-peace. Yet here was a man who was alienated in some way. In a way I could tell he had no peace. He was searching for answers. He had answers he wanted others to hear. We shared email addresses, and maybe we'll cross paths again.

When we parted I bid him "Vaya con Dios!" And he smiled and chattered back in rapid-fire Spanish I couldn't catch. I just saw that broad grin.

Today, preparing writing this, I found out his nickname is "Nacho." Onwards to adventure, Nacho!

Emma and I got down to work. We huddled around my faithful Macintosh. We slipped in the CD of her photos. Up they came in Photoshop. They are simply beautiful! Trees! Vines! Grass! Algae! Clover! Bricks and fences! Grilles and hydrants! Pavement and asphalt! The organic and the inorganic was right there along with the rain and the sunshine and the human and natural elements of her experience.

In due time, we will present some here.

We spent the rest of the time until Books, Inc. stacked the chairs in the upstairs café and shuttered its doors talking about beauty and flowers and photography and Emma's vision and philosophy. In due time we will post that interview here too. Because Emma is Moldovan, and is still learning English, she is more comfortable speaking to me directly. For now, she will be my "eyes" with a camera, and I will be her "words" upon the page. Much the same way Ilona will be the project's "eyes" in New York City.

On our way to drop Emma off, we found we both like Bob Marley. We sang together Is This Love?

This project is about a renewal of life, good feelings and spirits. Yesterday was a banner day. A big day.

I hope you had a good one too. If it wasn't, as the Buddha would say, "This too shall pass." Remember Bob Marley's words of hope: "Everything's gonna be alright."