San Francisco - Mark Kozelek

I need to stretch more, my left knee

If I bend down to pick something up I gotta grab hold of something to lift

myself

It used to be my right knee and now it’s my left

It must have been my left that was supporting my right all this time,

and now the left is giving out

Like my mom, I’ll likely end up with knee replacements

Caroline and I are just back from lunch

And a nice walk, except for seeing a seagull that’s legs were tied together by

fishing line

And nobody could do anything about it

Because he was in an illegal, closed-off section of the pier

He could let the wind pick him up and soar a little

But he’d descend back to the cement and land crookedly on his tied up legs

Left behind, watching his flock soar, screeching for their help

Caroline and I were in a panic asking people for scissors

I was gonna jump the barricade and cut the line that tied his legs together but

we couldn’t find anything

We couldn’t even find fingernail clippers

We found a fishing one with a big bloody serrated fishing knife

But the line that tied the seagull’s feet together needed to be snipped quickly

Trying to saw the line with a knife while a seagull was fighting you off could

tear his legs off

I’m no expert in animal rescue, but that knife wasn’t gonna work

Plus, people were gathering around

And fuck if I was gonna be caught on video jumping a barricade on a fishing

pier with an enormous bloody knife in my hand

I can see the headline now, «Crazed Musician Jumps Barricade Bludgeoning

Seagulls With Large Knife»

A fisherman threw him an anchovy and another seagull chewed it up and spit it

down the disabled seagull’s beak

The helpless seagull did one last soar and landed in the bay

My shoulders slumped, and I said to a middle-aged British tourist next to me, «Well, I guess he’ll be part of the food chain.»

He and I then talked about how we eat animals that we hoped were treated

humanely

And I interrupted him, «Wow, we’re two old white dudes patting ourselves on the

back, who are we kidding?

Every animal we eat is killed against their will.»

Then we talked about plastic, and how we grew up with plastic

And now we’re told not to use it anymore

And right there before our eyes was the reason that plastic is slowly being

phased out

I’m going fishing tomorrow, I hope someone invents some sort of eco-friendly

fishing line

Maybe they already have, I’ll have to ask around

For perch and rockfish, I use two to three hooks set about a foot-and-a-half

apart

With a three-ounce weight tied to the bottom

If one of those hooks gets caught on a rock covered in mussels

While trying to reel in a fish, the line breaks, and the fish gets bashed

against the mussels every time a wave comes

Until a seal comes around and gets him or the crabs pick him apart

Yes, they become a part of the food change

But I hate to think of a fish stuck on a line like that, and being bashed

against the rocks

And the plastic line that’s out there in the water

The tourist said that he and his wife were famous for owning a one-off handmade

car that was made in the late-60s

That they were on some British TV show

I chucked and said that I was B-level famous

They said, «B-level famous for what?»

I said, «Ah, I’m a musician.»

They asked what I sounded like

I said, «Well, like Nick Cave I guess, sorta dark.»

The guy lit up and said, «Alright, Nick Cave!»

When being asked what kind of music I play, I always try to get inside the head

of the person who’s asking

Walk in their shoes for a second, and think of a denominator they’ll connect

with

I’ve answered this question many times with various replies ranging from Neil

Young to R.E.M to Radiohead

Something they’ll know

It’s the right way to get it over with when you realize the jam you’ve put

yourself in

Like this one, two old guys talking about our fame while absolutely no one

hovers around us asking for autographs

He talked about how he didn’t know who Nick Cave was until Nick collaborated

with a famous female singer

I can’t think of her name, I don’t know enough about Nick Cave

But to bring this conversation to an end as quickly as possible,

I pretended I knew exactly who the female singer was

And he said, «Yeah, she’s who put him on the map!»

In the middle of all of this, Caroline got a text that our table was ready

I could see the relief in her face

Not only because we’d be eating lunch soon, but also because we found a genuine

segway to shake off the tourists

The lunch place was way up on Polk street and we needed to get moving

We shook the British tourist’s hands and said goodbye

Caroline said, «That poor seagull, and my God, that conversation went on for a

long time Mark!»

I said, «Well, I was the one who started it.»

The sound of that seagull’s panic is something I won’t soon forget

Nor the tourist going on about his rare one-off handmade car

On our way back up Russian Hill, we talked about the seagull

And I grumbled about a friend who has mysteriously turned all pouty on me about

vague things

I’m not sure what the issue is, but he hasn’t communicated with me for about a

week

If you’re a man racking your brains trying to figure out why your friend is

ignoring you and being uncooperative

Creating walls for reasons that you can’t identify

The answer may lie in the fact that he’s significantly shorter than you

If he’s older than you, that could be it too

Or maybe if he’s single

What did Captain Ahab say in Moby Dick?

Something like, «The old whales attract less females, it makes them bitter.»

We finally sat down for lunch on upper-Polk street

While I was drinking my iced tea, a waitress with a British accent handed me a

plastic straw and asked, «A cont or a bond?»

I said, «I'm sorry?

Excuse me, I didn’t understand.»

She looked at me perturbed and repeated, «A cont or a bond?»

In the middle of that Sunday brunch den, for a solid 10 to 15 seconds

I had no idea what in the fuck was happening

With vacillating eyes, I nodded yes

She handed me the straw and dashed quickly away from the imbecile of the day

I was shaking my head, confused, looking at Caroline like, «What did I do?»

Caroline leaned in towards me and said, very quietly

«The waitress was asking you, 'Do you want contraband?'»