conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled Cruising Paradise about Cruising, Paradise, Exploring with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Cruising Paradise contains 40 short stories by the renowned playwright and actor the author. Exploring themes of solitude and loss, the author revisits the innocence of boyhood, traverses the confines of loneliness, gives accounts of the farcical exclusiveness of show business and offers an obstinate perspective on death. As in his stage and screen work, the author ties these musings to the wilds and open spaces of Mexico and the United States, utilizing the allure and tempo of the open road to bring his writing and self-actualization full circle.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first three paragraphs for this book.. Start with the sentence 'Cruising Paradise
  And she pointed with her finger at a tall skinny boy with frightened eyes: 'Take off your hat so your father can see you!'
  And the boy took off his hat'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Cruising Paradise
  And she pointed with her finger at a tall skinny boy with frightened eyes: 'Take off your hat so your father can see you!'
  And the boy took off his hat. He was just like me and with something mean in his look. He had to get some of that from his father.
  For him, it began in a moment of shattering stillness. Something separated and fell away. Instinctively his heart understood this 'something' was the long-cherished notion of himself as a distinct individual; an American entity called 'The Self-Made Man.' He'd learned it through generations of irascible ancestors with the same hard-set jawline and gnarly nose. He had pictures of them on his stone mantel. Tintypes going back to the Civil War of his great-great-great-grandfather; a man called Lemuel P. Dodge, who lost an ear fighting for the North, an arm fighting for the South, and was finally hanged for 'womanizing' in Ojinaga and dragged through the dusty streets until his head separated from his torso. There were others: men with long beards and wide-brimmed straw hats, standing three abreast atop giant hay wagons, wooden pitchforks in hand, almost biblical against the prairie sky. Railroad men riding cowcatchers, waving derbies; blasting their way through granite mountains; unstoppable in their absolute conviction of Manifest Destiny. Then, later generations, where the mysterious glint of doubt begins to creep into their eyes. Fighter pilots in leather helmets and silk scarves, gripping the wings of a p-38, but the brave smile to the camera now has a twist in it, like a lamb knowing his time has come.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Well, I think you ought to have him arrested. He can't just go around shooting at people. That's not right.
  No. It's not the same man, then, because the man I remember you bringing home used to help with the dishes and the fire-wood. He was always bringing me things from the store. He shoveled snow off the driveway that one winter when we had that bad blizzard. You remember?
  That couldn't be the same man, because I remember telling you that was the man you ought to marry. But you wouldn't listen to me.
  I remember saying you'll never find another one like that one in a million years. Someone who takes care of you and watches out for the house.
  He lay flat on his back on the red rug, staring up at the lumpy ceiling. He figured it must have been some kind of fire retardant they'd sprayed up there; like moldy cottage cheese, ready to fall on his head any second. He was getting lost in details. Details of his immediate environment. It seemed a safe bet to him. Enclosed; where hail couldn't hit him. He might never leave this room again. He studied patterns of shadows on the wall created by the sun throwing light through the folds of the plastic curtains. He watched them move and shift and thought about how difficult it would be to draw them accurately. Even in black and white. He listened to voices in other rooms; just the sounds of voices, without being able to make out the words. Two men laughing, with the TV going full blast. TV in daytime. Baseball. Two men laughing; wishing they were with women instead. Any women. A distant lawn mower – somebody working to improve his tiny patch of real estate. The ice machine. The distant road. Then the sun suddenly shifted and washed all the shadows away in a cool, gray light. His back was aching, and he thought it must be from all the driving he'd done. All the driving he'd ever done. Miles he could never begin to account for; crisscrossing the country for reasons he'd long lost track of. Driving just to be driving. He pictured a map of the country on the lumpy ceiling, with Canada and Mexico amputated into black space; an island continent. Then, threading from coast to coast and north to south, were clusters of long, spiraling yellow lines, representing all his past trips. Trips without consequence, as far as he could remember. Except the one where he'd first met her. That line was red and began in Salt Lake at the state fair. They were standing right next to each other, watching a mule show. Total strangers. It was pure accident. They were both so hypnotized by the vision of flying mules diving off a hundred-foot platform that they never even noticed each other. The mules would land in a tank of water with a tremendous belly flop: all four legs stiffened out, eyes terrified, and emitting a god-awful scream as they fell. Finally, one of them missed the tank, and she had thrown herself into his chest, covering her mouth and moaning as though she'd received the impact herself. He held her and patted her back softly. She allowed him to encircle her with his arms. He held her the way he would a frightened child. The crowd was breaking up all around them. The guts of the mule had rolled out into the parking lot, steaming and blue. Attendants were running around with buckets and ropes, screaming orders at one another. He moved her away from the scene, toward a yellow tent in the distance that served hot dogs and beer. She went along with him, as though they belonged together. She crossed her wrists on her chest and kept her chin tucked tightly down on her clenched fists. People were running past them, back toward the accident. High-pitched, excited voices. One of them yelled out that there'd been a murder, and then all the voices rose a notch and more people came running. She stopped suddenly and looked up into his face. 'Oh, I'm sorry,' she said, and went running off. It took him all day to find her again. Then they lived together for five years straight.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: An old charro, astride an even older horse, with its ribs sticking out, stands in the middle of the dusty street, staring at us, with his leathery hands crossed on the saddle horn. The first AD asks him to move on, since he's right in the middle of the shot. The charro beats his old steed on the rump with a frayed shank of rope, then thumps him hard with his bare heels, but the horse only blinks. He just stands there with his ears drooped and refuses to budge. The whole village laughs. The director yells 'Silencio!' The old charro thrashes his mount again, and the horse gives a couple of pathetic bucks, then walks on. The whole village cheers. The charro grins and tips his huge sombrero. The laughter goes on, ringing out into the jungle. The director suddenly changes his mind and wants the charro back. He thinks he might add something authentic to the background, but it's too late. The old man has disappeared into a mango grove, and the ADs can't find him. He's completely vanished.
  The camera's finally ready. We're filming a cockfight on the street in front of a dusty pharmacy. Me and Hendker are supposed to walk into the middle of it and inquire about an old friend we've been searching for. The cockfight is for real, except the spurs of the roosters are capped with little leather balls rather than fixed with blades, as they would be in an actual gambling match. A sand arena has been fixed up on the street for the contestants. The roosters are in place with their handlers. They thrust the fighting cocks toward each other, getting them worked up. Our little French focus puller steps into the sand ring between the two Mexican handlers. He's wearing tight Bermuda shorts and dainty black tennis shoes, and he's drawing the measuring tape out from the lens to the tip of his nose in three-foot increments. He places the tape under the nose of one of the Mexican handlers, who's cradling his rooster like a baby, stroking the luminous red and green feathers on its neck. The handler's mouth is full of water. He holds the rooster up, facing him, then spits the water on the rooster's face and under his wings, and all over the little French focus puller, who takes it very well. He's a good sport. He smiles politely at the Mexican handler, who's so absorbed in preparing his rooster that he hasn't noticed the results of his spitting. The focus puller makes a mark with his finger in the sand, right in front of the Mexican, then backs out of the ring, coiling his tape up and smiling the whole while. He makes a humble little bow as he exits and returns dutifully to the side of the camera, adjusting the lens. The Mexican handler looks down and notices the mark in the sand. He has no idea where it came from, but he wants the sand smooth for his fighting cock, so he erases it with the toe of his sandal. The focus puller looks up and notices his precise mark has disappeared. He can't figure it out. He reenters the ring, uncoils his tape measure again, and makes a brand-new mark in the sand, then exits the same way as before, bowing and smiling. Again, the Mexican erases his mark. The focus puller keeps smiling. This time he brings a small stick with him and sets that down as his mark. The Mexican tosses the stick out. Sticks are even worse than marks for fighting cocks.
  When the fight finally gets under way, the shot keeps getting interrupted by the drunken owner of one of the roosters. He keeps stepping into the ring and cheering him on. The director tries to explain to the man that this isn't a real fight. It's just for the camera. But the man doesn't understand. He says his rooster, which he calls Colorado, always fights to the death. He's fought him in Texas, in Arizona, and all over Mexico, and he's always fought to the death. It will spoil him for future fights if he isn't allowed to kill his opponent. The director tells him this isn't possible in the movies. It's illegal to kill any animal for the movies. The owner gets offended and scoops his rooster up in his arms. He says, 'Colorado is not a coward!' and stomps off. The director apologizes, but the owner won't allow his rooster to continue under these circumstances. He staggers away, weaving down the dirt road with his proud rooster stuck under his armpit. He's turned his back on the movies.
  Me and my oldest son dragged a huge slab of limestone off the shore of Lake Michigan up to the little cemetery overlooking the hayfields of Door County. We hauled it with an old nylon steer rope I had in the bed of my truck. We dug a trench for it between two red cedars and dropped it in edgewise, so the flat white side of the rock would face the morning sun. For over seventy years, my grandparents on my mother's side had been buried here in an unmarked grave. My mother had always been bothered about this, so we were trying to fix it up for her: place a native stone from the very same beach where her father had built his cabin, back at the turn of the century. Later that same day, we brought her up to take a look at it. A little surprise. She walked around the stone, with her arms crossed softly on her chest and a worried look in her eyes. She thanked us both for the effort and smiled. Then she stopped for a while and stared hard at the two cedar trees, her eyes running up the shaggy bark to the thick fernlike canopy. She turned completely around and stared across the little gravel path that divided the Protestant side from the Catholic. 'I think it's in the wrong place,' she said apologetically as she turned back to us and nodded toward our mammoth stone. 'It's been such a long time. I'm trying to remember. I know Pop was buried right next to Mother. That's the way they'd agreed to do it. They always wanted to be side by side like that. Of course, it was their decision not to have a stone. Everyone was so humble in those days. I know Pop wanted it that way; just to dissolve back into the earth and disappear. I just can't for the life of me remember. These two trees were so small back then.' I told her we could move it for her easy enough. It just meant some more digging, and we could easily shift it to a new location. But she couldn't remember the exact spot. 'I'm just not sure. I think this must be the Pooles' plot, though. I seem to remember burying Maude here. I think they owned everything between these two cedars. I remember standing over here during her funeral. It's terrible when you get your funerals mixed up.' She walked back a few paces and stopped, then turned facing out toward the shimmering vast surface of Lake Michigan. The wind caught a wisp of her white hair and blew it across her mouth, but she didn't move. She seemed to be staring far across the great water, clear into Canada. 'Yes, I think I was facing east, toward the lake. I'm sure I was. I remember the wind hitting me, just like this. I could smell the water.'
  Almost exactly a year later, we buried my mother's ashes slightly to the left of the two red cedars. We'd checked with the folks who ran the cemetery, and sure enough, our limestone slab was in the wrong spot, so we dug it up and moved it again. It lined up right behind my mother's grave. Everything was in its place now, and we left it just like that.