After the California Pizza Kitchen debacle, my brother and I ditched Pops at home and returned to Fashion Island—this time to Barnes and Noble. This particular bookstore is one of my brother’s hangouts. He mentioned he frequents it almost daily (something my Dad wished he did working at a job). My brother must be on the lookout for bookish chicks, as there is no free food in this establishment.
We were so hyped from dinner (plus the champagne buzz for me and the sugar high for my brother) that we hadn’t adjusted the volume of our speaking voices back into normal decibel range. Consequently, we bounced from section to section, talking loudly—like the immature animated high schoolers we used to be. (And sometimes still are?)
My brother showed me his two favorite sections: Music and New Age/Religion. He gave reviews on almost every book on the shelves. I know he’s not buying the books—does he read them in the store and put them back? He tried to get me interested in something called the Bhagavad Gita in a book by Paramahansa Yogananda.
“Gar,” I said yelled. “These are yoga people. They get up at three o’clock in the morning to lie face down on a cold floor and chant. I wouldn’t get up at three o’clock in the morning to have cake and ice cream with Jesus.”
“Jesus did yoga,” my brother said yelled.
People in the store glared at us.
“He did not.”
“Did, too.”
My brother pulled a book from a shelf. It was titled, The Yoga of Jesus. The cover displayed a picture of Jesus sitting in a yoga position with his hands clasped in a yoga pose.
“Gar,” I said shouted. “It was the Beatles who went to India. Not Jesus.”
My brother laughed. He was pulling my leg. He thinks I’m unenlightened. I think he’s un-responsible. My sister thinks he’s unwelcome. My Dad thinks he is underemployed. And my Mother thought he was the second-coming of Jesus.
I wanted to buy Mary Karr’s new memoir, Lit.
[Note #1: I’ve read MK’s previous memoirs—Liar’s Club (really incredible book about her childhood) and Cherry (also pretty good, about her adolescence). The third book is about her adult life—coming to terms with her mother; getting married and having a child; and taking a trip to alcoholic hell and back. I love books with mothers more wacky than my own.
I also love books about people who were born into a pickle to begin with, later on get themselves into a pickle by themselves, and then get themselves out of the pickle. Somebody else’s troubles make me feel better about my life—not in a schadenfreude kind of way, but more like, “Whew—there’s no way my life is as screwed-up as that!”]
Back to the bookstore: My brother and I looked for the nonfiction section. Keep in mind the whole time we were in this store, we were noisy, giggly, and gibbering like meth addicts about this book, that book, here’s a book, there’s a book, everywhere a book, book!
We finally located the nonfiction table.
“Mary Karr, Mary Karr, where’s Mary Karr?” I asked.
“Oh, Tone,” my brother said.
My brother and I stood side-by-side at the table, looking down while we scanned the book titles.
“Do you see it? I need my glasses!”
“Oh, Tone.”
At the same time, we spied the Mackenzie Phillips memoir, High on Arrival. On the cover she wore a peasant blouse and a sad face. We knew why she was sad. We instantly shut up. (I’m sure the other store patrons were quite pleased.)
It was like a sack of bricks had been dropped on our heads. We looked at each other. I saw the pained look on my brother’s face. I felt the same pain.
We couldn’t speak. Instead we gritted our teeth and made weird guttural sounds like, “skkllluuhh” and “gggaaaahh”—thankfully quietly.
We did not want to discuss the pain Mackenzie suffered at the hands of her own father. It’s beyond sinister.
Neither of us saw the Mary Karr book so I asked a sales clerk where it was. She cheerfully pointed to it—on the wall against the non-fiction table.
My bro and I slumped to the cash register—the bricks still weighing heavily on our heads. I bought him two books: Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality by Dean I. Radin and Lyrics by Bob Dylan. I got the Mary Karr book and another copy of Alice in Wonderland to add to my collection.
Moral of this story: My Dad looking like the final days of Howard Hughes; shouting about N—–s, tennis player’s crotches, Muslims, sexy bras, lousy tomatoes, fat butts, how old and wrinkled Chris Evert looks because that’s what happens to gals over fifty and no wonder Greg Norman got rid of her, and what-not in public? Ha—that’s nothing! Even Mary Karr’s deranged, alcoholic, butcher-knife-wielding mother pales in comparison to Mackenzie’s father.
It seems that Mackenzie is getting out of her own pickle right now. My best to her in that effort. Let’s hope hers is the last book of its kind. And that my bro and I can continue to skip around Barnes & Nobles like care-free kids, which is the way all kids are supposed to be.
[Note #2: In a previous blog I wrote about meeting hippies and the 60s song, “If You’re Going to San Francisco.” I said I never liked it. No wonder. It was written by Mackenzie’s father. Ugh.]
