The New Reebs Revolution.

I am the human sneaker wave. I'm the guy you kissed at that party years ago; what's his name? I'm the quiet freak in the last row of the classroom, disproportionate to his desk. The one who never took his eyes off the pool felt at the bar. Remember that guy who held your hair back while you threw up? That was me. Or that guy in traffic holding a conversation with himself? Yep. I bagged your groceries once. I didn't ask; I knew you wanted plastic...

I was an unhappy janitor, paralegal assistant, diligent gardener, nursery hand, introverted biologist, chatty barista, warehouse clown, promiscuous server, afterschool human jungle gym, church donation dude, sexy-ass delivery guy, professional birdwatcher. I got the data, then i analyzed it. I crossed the t's, dotted the i's. I signed on the line, i served, i filed... but never, was it hand-to-mouth.

The New Reebs Revolution is a 1-step program. It's a theory i've developed for explaining a thoroughly baseless existence, rooted in the depths of underachievement. It recently struck me that i'm not existing and doing with a sense of contribution or purpose. Often times there's no reason; not even my dear desire to do it (though i usually enjoy and appreciate my present state of being). Rather, i am guided by whim and ethereal command.

Since i have rarely found myself in a financial fix, or otherwise jonesed the carpet for dislocated rocks... i've developed a new expedient for the mundane world of business and its employment: the hand-to-mind existence. Wouldn't it be terribly depressing if one only worked for the money? Work should be even more than the experience itself. It's the combination of absurdity, sure effort, and accomplishment; beginning the task and the satisfaction of being part to true chronology in completion. It's the act of taking the ridiculous (my life) and alchemically making gold of it.

In Response To Everyone...

{Nearing the podium the house lights raise to meet my eyes. A massive arch of light framed above the stage glints downward. The crowd has become silhouette, anonymous shadows seated beyond the stage. I can hear their tenebrous shuffles and murmers. My fingertips find the microphone before me and lightly tap a digital heartbeat. My fingers then reach toward the breast pocket of my shirt. They unfold a piece of paper neatly scrawled with a farewell speech.}

I guess i'm dead. And despite my steadfast belief that our spirit follows its corporeal form above and below ground... here i am.

Jesse: [Clears throat] Um, hello everyone [the four people that read this shit]. Thank you for coming. I would like all of you to feel free, at any time, to question or comment on anything i've said, or am about to say. To begin, i'd like to answer a few questions posed before my stylish exit from the secular life i was leading. Yes, Margie in the front row.

Margie: Were you really epically falling in and out of love at 17?

Jesse: Notwithstanding an enormous influx of viable drugs previously, yes... i believe i was. We led a healthy life together and meticulously studied food labels. Wholesome and whole-grain have a similar ring, don't they?
---
Andrew: Is there really any reason to get bombed out of your gourd by yourself?

Jesse: From time to time, yes. But one needs to get bombed on only the finest. This forces moderation by sheer inability to afford frequent debauchery, as well as solves the problem of poor taste and wicked hangovers from cheap liquor.
---
Manita: Do you ever plan to not make any plans in an attempt to be present?

Jesse: Yes, but it rarely works in the Western World. The way i feel, there's plenty of time for everything, including fruitless planning. What ever happened to that gig for being a Seahawks massage therapist? You'd get to meet the Seattle SeaGals...
---
Dustin: Why do the Seahawks suck so bad this year? And do you feel in any way attached to their failure?

Jesse: They suck because they struggle with putting points on the board, and also find it difficult to stop opponents from doing the same. And yes, their failure resonates deeply with me. We are bound like Pepsi and diabetes.
---
Benjamin: Remember when i toasted you on the Chinese New Year in San Francisco, that you may not hold any more grudges? How's that working out for you?

Jesse: Well, it's going pretty well. I only have one now and i'm working real hard on it...
---
Anne: Do you love Jesus?

Jesse: I had to answer that question for at least a decade. Next question please... Yes, the old man in the back row.
---
Peter: Did you see the light?

Jesse: No, not until ten in the morning. And then it set at half past two. Alaskan winters...

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Impossible Dissolution of Love.

I had a vivid dream this morning sometime nearing the five o'clock hour. It was haunting and bittersweet and packed more punch than Hawaii, more spike than a game of beach volley, and more genuine pain than a real heartache. How about contemplating that between crunches of 5 a.m. raisin bran and a wicked strong cup of coffee. What the hell brought it on?

About seven years ago i fell in love with a woman and i said some things that commited me to a cause, intended an eternity between us. We swore up and down and everything we mused, except the words near the end, didn't come to pass. It took a long time to heal but as sure as a Manhatten martini costs ten bucks, the day came.

Seems that certain promises have a residual, lasting effect. I imagine it has a lot to do with actually meaning it or not. And i'm guilty of bona fide sincerity in this case; i meant every goddamned word. Perhaps for this reason it haunts me still. Does every one of us have a certain ghost that visits us without warning? At one point my ghost visited every night for three months running. She has the face of an angel and brings me to my knees. She dissolves hope and tears at my insides. And i awake embittered, embattled to panic, and that's it... I hadn't seen her in half a year, until this morning.

There were those books we were reading. The ones with Carlos and his Yaqui teacher Juan. The story goes: the teacher and pupil were seated near twilight on the back porch looking out toward the stretching Sonoran desert. The pupil was getting tore up on a bottle of tequila but failed to mention that in his book. Around this time the teacher revealed the presence of a certain being never identified by science: the 'mud shadow.' It could be viewed best at dusk, a breathless silhouette leaping on the eye's periphery. What does this being do? asked the young pupil. Well, answered the teacher, it preys on us. "We are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance." At this point the teacher laughed and laughed, while the student grew uneasy (and strangely infuriated) by this information. The teacher further explained that it would be ridiculous, and arrogant, to posit human beings atop the food chain. That, in fact, we ourselves have a predator that rear us as "chickens in chicken coops." And, that daily we are consumed in our places of work, school, or church. And nightly, in our very beds, in our homes, in our dreams.

I have always had a difficult time explaining my ghost in terms of a self-projected phantom, something i create in dream and exploit myself with. That just doesn't work for me. This other theory works better, but also falls short by its sheer scope of science fiction. Perhaps that's also why i kind of dig it. I know some jerkoff psychiatrist could have a hayday on this stuff.

Whatever the case, it forces me to realize that words hold physical strength. That they create and form that which we cannot see. And, the syntax of sentence and phrase, its due meaning, and reciprocation thereof can liberate or bind the speaker. Unspoken word: thought, can bring the same result. Hence, the promise even now i cannot break...


Sonora near the border...

"Do you like to gamble, Eddie? Gamble money on pool games?"
-Minnesota Fats, The Hustler

In from the bath...

In the past weeks i've taken to the bath with an increasing urgency. I have begun daydreaming of it at work... the nearing moment when i can draw hot water, shed my clothes, and grab a book. I don't remember such a feverish desire for submersion since i was young, pushing yellow ducks across the surface or watching as technicolor sponges wax into dinosaur shapes (remember those? fucking amazing shit...).

It's the release of breath as i inch my body beneath the surface. The water drawn to redden the skin, almost burn. And then feet up and hearing that hollow ring of surrounding tile and lately the faint murmur of Dvořák's piano trios from the other room (my chosen bathing music~ highly recommended).

In the bath i realize so many things about myself. For one, i'm incredibly tall... how far away my feet are! And skin still tanned from a season or two ago, in the tall ponderosa pines of Idaho. The smooth hairless patches above my knees where my pants have worn the skin, from legs pumping like pistons aboard my bike. That my voice can do amazing things in this private studio of watery reverbration and human echolocation. Or how easy it is to turn everything off, i mean every goddamned voice that jaws throughout the day... they have no place in the bath.

And then i've had enough silence and i let the voices in... thinking of Gary Snyder's The Bath, and discarding that i hum the very best bath song ever written, perhaps ever sung. Bilbo Baggin's Bath Song:

Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!

O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams,
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat, and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack
and Water Hot poured down the back.

O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!

Amen brother... i feel ya.

Other places, other rooms...

A storm was coming on, the air had cooled and a sharp breeze cut the streets. Up ahead a vacancy sign blinked haphazardly. We'd been walking around Missoula for hours looking for a place to stay. I'd lost track of how many lobbies we'd entered, prices i'd negotiated, and rooms surveyed then dismissed. My girlfriend seemed intent on finding something that Missoula would not offer.

The lady at the front desk gave us the key to a room. We went up a flight of stairs and looked down toward the courtyard. The swimming pool was drained and heavily cracked, collecting paint flecks and maple leaves in its basin. We pushed open the heavy door of our room and stepped inside. It reminded me of an enlarged janitor's closet. An oversized water pipe was fastened along the wall above the bed. The no-smoking sign had been ignored hundred of times, perhaps thousands. I sat down and divided the blinds with my fingertips and looked out at the courtyard again. The place was deserted. A rundown job with a tacky name like The Oasis or Hotel Paradise. I remember a palm tree on the sign and a shabby room that we didn't take.

An argument had started during lunch. We were the only table at this small joint and the undertasked waiter kept checking on us. His boyish good-looks and 90210 spiked hair were enough to make me sick. I was worn thin now realizing we were at the end. In a little while we would return the key and leave another lobby behind. The lady at the front desk would make a slighted comment about questionable elapsed time. I would smile and tell her to get tossed. Part of me would remain in that room, a single meaningful thought preserving in memory four walls and one door.

My whole life has passed thus far in rooms. And each one returns with a thought, an event, a face.
There was the final night on the campaign when John Kerry lost. i went home with a fellow canvaser and we rung some passion from our sad, weary bodies in a fascimile apartment room. The hardlined creations typical of Orlando outskirts; conspecific condos with only numbers to differ one from the next. Dusty popcorn ceiling above us and a hard white light from the street lamp. It cast a barred rectangle of light over our bodies; three a.m.

My first night as a gringo backpacker. Checked in at the Hotel Imperial in San Jose. The cardboard door, blankets washed down to a paper thinness... late night shadows beneath the door, squeaking bedsprings. The realization that i've been alone all my life, but had to check into this hotel to finally realize it.

There was the night in Montreal when Rebekah and i told stories from our bunkbeds. Our small room was painted light blue and i nearly expected a mobile to dangle above my bed. I was up above looking out toward the city while she brushed her hair on the bottom bunk. Low clouds were engulfing the skyscrapers of downtown. The sight reminded me of Batman's Gotham, the clouds eery glow from within, the mosaic of lit rectangles on the building faces.

I'm a sentimental young fool. I can only wonder at what my gerry years will bring. I wonder if my grandkids will listen to this drivel...

The produce man speaks...

This Tuesday had all the makings of a Monday. I walked into the grocery before the 180 degree hour of six and was greeted by the sounds of new country music. My friend in produce, Tom, was fumbling with a cart full of bananas and tuning out the world. I decided to sing along to the Larsen Blaine song by his side, delivering those ridiculous lines... "I don't know what she said, but i sure like the way that she said it...!" A carefully crafted song about a gringo in some Mexican beach resort hotel and his eyecandy maid. True love...

What is it about the talk of "senoritas" and "crossing the border" that country is so latched to? I understand the relation to cowboys and rugged terrain, but this latest draw for margaritas and pina coladas and brown-skinned mamas, what's that? And remember, the vast majority of country music listeners are Republican bigots who probably are all in for building a three-thousand mile border fence, but love a competitive minimum wage. And Acapulco, Cancun, the street boys of Juaraz and Mexicali and Tecate, fuck it man! "Bring me two pina coladas, i need one for each hand (Garth Brooks)" and "Senorita Margarita i'm as lonesome as a man can be (Tim McGraw) or "Some beach, somewhere there's nowhere to go, when you've got all day to get there. There's cold margaritas and hot senoritas... (Blake Shelton)" It sells for a reason...

Tom wasn't feeling it, a little surprised that i knew the song so well. He leaned toward me and asked in confidence, "You know why we listen to this shit everyday?" He didn't seem to mind my closet love for new country. "It's cos everybody in here is divorced and pissed off. I know... cos i did the same thing. There's something about this cheap music..." he trailed off. Quite a thought for the hour. I thanked him and got to work.

It struck me that right about the time i started listening to country music two things had happened. The first, i'd split with my first love and wasn't feeling terribly happy about life. And the second was my car attenae broke. That left me with only AM radio, which further narrowed the choices to Rush Limbaugh, NPR, oldies, circus tuba music (from across the border), and good ol' new country music. Perhaps a tape deck would have solved this tough decision.

I was driving down to Portland, Oregon in 1999 with that country music playing. I'd recently had that separation i mentioned and was feeling in loose ends. And on came an old favorite song by Mark Willis, Wish you were here. It's about this fella that has to catch a plane. He says goodbye to his baby and buys a postcard with a picture of paradise on the front, it just reads heaven. Then he gets on the plane and WHABAM! Of course, the whole thing goes down. But, wouldn't you know it. He writes her from heaven and she finds this postcard, "That just said Heaven with a picture of the ocean and the beach... and the simple words he wrote her, said he loved her and they told her, how he'd love her if his arms would reach..."

And it was too much for me. Sentimentality knows no bounds to appropriate outburst. I sang for a little while to this cheezy song and kept pushing the car forward, but i finally had to pull over. The emotional vehicular breakdown. Maybe Tom's right; broken love makes a maudlin person, susceptible to the insipid tastes of new country music. Sometimes you gotta dumb down to feel it.

Wordless wisdom from G-D...

Oh yes, the day has come. Blitz Day, Black Friday, or also known as the day after Thanksgiving. A day for sexually-depraved, discontent, soccer moms to punch it out on the consumer beat. A day filled with belated DUIs; which reminds me i'm still drunk, and now on the timeclock.

Last night i got thoroughly tossed with a kind bottle of Bogle to warm me up at noon. Downhill, gravity, exceptional slow motion. Nearing a full turn of the clock, i attempted an exit homeward. Nearing the truck i got dropped by two friends. Placed roughly in a snowbank kicking and screaming while the keys were removed from the ignition. Coup de Morale. Morality by force. So i returned indoors and played tremendously sober, winning cribbage which was terribly convincing.

Within an hour i earned my keyring back. Heading out for the second time into the thirteen degree frigid night, i made it just beyond the driveway. Back wheel spinning, back wheel set; the e-brake locked, shoes frozen solid about the axle. Burning rubber on ice i managed to reverse back into the drive and shared a good curse with myself. Returning indoors yet again my numb fingers curled in the anti-form of a steering wheel. I fumbled with a bottle and sat down. Sometimes we can't turn away from drunkenness... we must face it, forget about tomorrow's work, and play another game of cards.


That's my bike on our porch. Mount Edgecumbe back there in the sunset... ten degrees and windless.

A picture and a thought.

At home I caught myself facing the jars and cans in the cupboard. This besetting behavior was unconscious and troubling. Work has followed me home like a poor, hungry kitten. I was listening to what perhaps is my favorite song, "My Way," Frank Sinatra. I remember reading something Ol' Blue Eyes said once, "Don't get even, get mad..." I wonder what he meant by that.
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.
-My Way

A letter to M.

I would like to dedicate this entry to Margie, my West Coast correspondent reporting the fair pulls and beautiful travesties of San Francisco Bay...

M. the weather is something to admire. We're all watching it with our hands around shovel handles, gloved and hooded and booted. All natural color has vanished but the coniferous green (is white a color?... and black, the absence of color?) wandering up the hillsides, and the occasional gap from gray overcast to incandescent blue, shortwithstanding.

All this water around us in the form of ice and snow, and yet it's bone dry. And you're right M., dry snow is slippery... i found that out this morning with a mug of coffee walking my bike down the hill. One slip on a right step and i was sliding textbook baseball style with one knee bent, foot below the other knee (i would've been safe). It was gallant and sacrificial the way i protected the coffee and surrendered to the snow. Not a drop spilled and my bike still by my side after taking ten feet on my bum. I managed a wobbly ride all the way to work without another fall... you would've been proud, i know.

Maybe i'm looking for reasons, but it's more than definite now... this temporary state of working for Pepsi-Cola. Something magnetic about me and absurd situations; spontaneity and the least-likely have become dear companions of mine. I've always figured that the more ridiculous my current placement (vocation, location, situation...), the more simply i'll become indifferent and objective, hence more apt and adept to deal. But this is a new one, new limits are being set.

It began yesterday, the realization that absurdity may have an accumulative effect on the relatively sensitive individual. I was hauling some storage carts through a frozen parking lot, puffing clouds of breath and trying not to slip on my face. A man shouted to me and approached, asked me if i was the Pepsi Guy. Well, you know, shit... a celebrity. He wanted to request the return of 12-pack Diet Mountain Dew to his chosen grocer. I've heard this request everyday for weeks now, unbelievable firstly that people imbibe of this ungodly shit. And secondly, it's outrageous the response, and in a few cases~ fury, people have managed to this given situation. Consumers have banded together and complained on a daily basis at every grocery, multiply, since the obscure product disappeared from the shelf. Imagine if we could get this societal response in a real situation, you know... one that mattered. Like perhaps an unnecessary war, education, or global climate change.

So i stopped in my tracks as the wind kicked up rooftop snow and blew it across the lot. As the man carried on a one-person conversation about sodapop, and the lack of his favorite flavor, i tried to make some sense of my coat zipper. The damn thing was broken and i was beginning to freeze. I looked up into this man's overly-attentive eyes and explained to him that, yes, i know. And, yes, i'll take care of it when i can. Fifty cases are due in on the barge from Seattle, i said. And for now, could he go drink something else... He smiled, a deeply discomfiting thing for me, and leaned closer to touch my jacket. "You know," he said, "i can fix zippers." Jesus, a real celebrity.

So that was the first thing M.. Remember Bob Packwood? Well, i felt like his secretary. The second thing was listening to my co-worker, who normally only converses about his exercise routine or getting his sales up, talk about the Duh Vinci Code, which he rented last night. I asked him if he ever read the book and he replied, "I haven't read a book in years." I thought, huh, that's great. Then later on today, without even prodding, another person told me the same thing. We were at the office talking about getting the hell home and away from work. I audibly imagined myself in the bath with a book and mused, wouldn't that be nice? She answered, "Oh, i don't read." What? What do you people do?

M. i'm a sheep among lambs. Someone spiked the grass, it doesn't chew right. The shepherd's not here; sometimes i wonder if there even is one.
Sincerely, your devout facsimile friend,
J

Be there now.

Today began with a dull howl of wind beyond the door, window, wall. A miniature spindrift of fresh snow on the porch covering the welcome mat and "snow lying deep and even" (Gray) up the steps toward the drive. I shouldered my yellow-fendered bicycle toward the road and peddled on to work. A crisp line delved in snow and the soft crunch as the wheel parted through... And me, menial Moses.

The peace i knew at five o'clock was shortlived as a wind picked up, snow melt to rain, and rain took another elemental leap to hail. The way the sky falls up here in the northern latitudes is something to behold. Weather has a sinewy force and insistence that reminds me of the cloud forests in Central America, awe-striking and temperamental.

I had an epiphany today as i worked my way through the grocery stores, looking up into ultra-violent light of 200 watt bulbs dancing behind lined bottles of juice and soda. I was resetting the order of products on brazen display to the customer quirking alignment to hold as much as possible. It struck me that evolution and maturation of the self is very misguiding by the precept that it's a forward movement, a development in complexity. It's not so; can often even be the opposite, remember the Devolution?

All these years i've been convinced that i was growing more intelligent and acquiring refined skills and no-how. It surprised me; not only was this far from accurate, i found it a brilliant relief. I'm moving sideways and that's okay. It reminded me of a song, as most everything does. Somewhere in the day i'll pick up a tune that plays softly until i recognize its presence. And further in, it makes another connection. Every song has at least two reasons to be remembered. This morning in the clouds i was singing:

two little feet to get me 'cross the mountain
two little feet to carry me away into the woods
two little feet, big mountain, and a
cloud comin' down cloud comin' down cloud comin' down

I hear the voice of the ancient ones
chanting magic words from a different time
well there is no time there is only this rain
there is no time, that's why I missed my plane

John Muir walked away into the mountains
in his old overcoat a crust of bread in his pocket
we have no knowledge and so we have stuff and
stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there
it just won't get you there
-Greg Brown

Over the years i've grown bored with trying to be present all the time. I wanna play inside from time to time. If i had to face the sodapop i deliver everyday without a little imaginative wandering, where would i be? Exactly, with the sodapop. I think that's what age has given me... a quick shot of gerry in the arm, less care to my coffee-stained teeth, the ability to drown out the (micro)manager talking in my ear about product display. Ever wonder of the peace of mind to come as the layers are stripped from us? Will we all become storytellers and daydreamers? Is that what lies beneath?

All i know is, that as i stared into the bright mosaic of brightly tempered cans and bottles i was in at least three other places. I was riding a bicycle with the song.
In Seattle asking Manita "What do people think of when they think of Morocco?" And she was telling me, "Tiles, mosaics... we should go."
I was tightly lacing my new white basketball shoes and shooting hoops with my friend Willie, our plan for the evening.
...Then, i wasn't anywhere at all.
And when i came back i felt better. "Stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there..." Oh man, i love that line. I had to think about that for a while...


Sunset in Portland, Maine from a favorite spot...

Questionable, yes.

I recently decided to change course and abandon the common authority of advice. The entire process of influence has little to do with the inevitable outcome (and everyone knows it!). People are going to do what they do 95% of the time, regardless of any preceding advice doled on the matter. Unless, that is, the advice coincides with the already entrenched gut feeling of the recipient.

I know, no one wants to hear this. It eliminates many tiresomely delved dilemnas and seeks to debase the foundation of collective intellect and shared experience. But only for a matter of time until that course is set and experienced; because, as human beings we can only see wisdom (good advice) in hindsight. We learn by falling and for some reason we want to keep doing it. Dr. Thompson wrote:

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But, if we're fools than so is everyone else and does it matter who says what? In the same way that we analyze a person's record collection or library, we deem merit to like-minded thought. So seek the advice you like. It's not so bad. If one has a question, then chances are (omitting human shells and androids), one has an answer. And due to the instilled terms of self-reliance and personal experience, one wishes to follow their own counsel to hence it leads. But prior to all this, one needs a little confirmation by someone else. That's what friends are for.


The Chipman speaks from Kenora, Ontario

Daydreaming: a memoir...

It's a monday morning before election day... all is a ghost town, not a soul on the streets. I'm working in the produce section of a still grocery; the only sound~ a faint echo of new country wafting down from a hidden speaker. The produce manager, Tom, has his hands busy with cantalope and honey dew. Sleeves rolled past the elbow, an apron tied smartly around his waist, he squeezes and rests each melon in a crate. His mouth is hidden with the pendant gray of a handlebar mustache grown to unfettered perfection.

Every morning before the sun comes up, this man greets me with a question mark to a hi or hello. Many of his comments end with that leaping note of askance. Sometimes i'll say 'Good morning' and he'll answer 'Is it?' A fair point... wishing to rid a little of the rhetorical. It helps the already light mood of our contented hands in menial labor. He has a lot to say and sometimes he does... Most of the time we don't say anything at all.

We are working without a word now... i'm thinking of Sundays field trip to the shooting range and a John Prine song on the radio.
---
You and me, sittin' in the back of my memory.
Like a honey bee, buzzin' round a glass of sweet Chablis
Radio's on, windows rolled up and my mind's rolled down...
Headlights shinin' like silver moons rollin' on the ground

Gonna be a long Monday
Sittin' all alone on a mountain by a river that has no end
Gonna be a long Monday
Stuck like the tick of a clock that's come unwound- again...
---
Hearing it again... bringing fragmented images and feeling. A nostalgia, wistful yet dear of an old love in an old town. Being back again in the simple hands of weekday labor. And a song in my head... and the way i make a song sing to me, to what i'm seeing and feeling. Sometimes my mind gets away, translated in music. And Sunday...

The sun was trying to crest the hill, its halo resting on the silhouetted spires of hemlock and spruce. The ground crunched beneath my feet with frost and spent shells of high-powered rifles. I was no longer in the grocery store.
Have you ever found a place that was impossible to think in? and so you didn't... as simple as that. I was at home in this feeling. Even against odds, on the range...

Lassitude be gone!

There's a television in my house. It stares at the upholstered loveseat sofa and the sofa stares back. It's on now and again for the increasingly frequent movie night (alaskan winter recreation), or for a football game, or occasional channel-surfing and things of that nature. It wouldn't be a novel theory to postulate that most programs the tele has to offer include varieties of sexual inuendo (everything), mixed with fraternity homoeroticism (see: MTV), and un-real life slices of brash interlude (commercials)... though it may be a true one.

Okay, that being said, I'm beginning to wonder why it's not working. All this anvilled quasi-colloquial bullshit geared toward my desire to want(!) and to need(!) any variety of things... should at least occasionally function for its set course. Back to that bit on sexual inuendo and the gross marketing by babes and the like. I can't remember the last time any tele knocked my socks off with some delicious prototype of the female form. And quite frankly it doesn't bother me. What does is the rest of the male populace going gaga over airbrushed toehead wonderwoman flashing a new cellphone ring-tone or the dimwit seduction of a Shania Twain applying a nice, thick layer of Revlon on her mug.

My life has always been heading toward quiet solipsism. Certain things reinforce and complement that aim. And the antidote to this dross is the simple pitch to infatuation and hopefully healthy possession with an unfeigned, gospel being. And that's where i'm going cos real love is sharing a good book with someone that you want to ravage, or a dynamite record, or an opinion on something inessential... yet just that.

Thinking=Drinking

Halloween is growing near and i have nothing to wear. It's actually a relief this time around. I don't have to find a costume or a good time when there plausibly may not be one in my vicinity. For the sake of nostalgia and posited engram, I would like to take a reverse chronological leap in time, a stroll down that lane of Halloween and its dolled incumbents. By reviewing my past choices of mimicry perhaps i can reach some handle of what i wish to be in this life (the real one).

Growing up we didn't celebrate holidays. At least that's what i told all my friends. In actuality, we did... though we omitted the "holy" and just did as we pleased. There was Thanksgiving when we would gamble and us kids would find a bottle to work on. There was the occasional Fourth of July when my uncle would attempt to set new records for height of flame. Pyromaniacism runs on both sides of my family. There was the "Special Day," which unlike a birthday (an alternative to...)~ did not come every year. It came whenever one wanted it to. The family would conspire together and throw a shebang for one of its members. It was as simple as that: unpredictable. There was a New Years thrown in every now and again where i'd get to smoke a cheap cigar or two with my family and marvel at fireworks from the Space Needle or, more often than not, indian reservation antics in our front yard.

We celebrated when we felt like it. And growing up, us kids always felt like Halloween. We were determined and methodical in our approach to trick-or-treating. My parents would aim us toward the hills above town where the one percentile loomed in their mansions and three car garages. We played the role and were rewarded with full candy bars and greedy handfuls. But this isn't the interesting part cos we, my brother, sister and i, were your typically donned pirates, princesses, and ninjas. Nothing special. Nowadays, these things live on... mixed in with a Power Ranger here and there.

I broke out with Jesus. I was fifteen or sixteen, long-haired and pretty. I practiced my innocent face of compassion in the mirror. It was blasphemous and beyond. The following year i followed it up as a babe, pink dress, ribbons and bows... i was a knockout and knew it. For so many years i'd been mistaken and now i stood to the occasion. I was in my third year of college when i returned to the biblical splendor as Judas Priest. Wrapped smartly in a white robe, hair flowing, a beard formed of the lichen Usnia longisima. I was (am) a natural science nerd of botany, bryology and the like, as were my friends. I ate a handful of Psilocybe cyanescens along with another of P. baeocystis. i washed it down with a few cups of hot liberty cap tea. It was a good night.

The following year i moved to San Francisco and found myself down on the Castro with a mob of people. I was Princess Leia and it went over pretty well for the area. My hair twisted in bobs about my ears and a makeshift gun assembled from a peeler, the cardboard from a toilet paper roll, and plenty of black electrical tape. Next year i was a greaser, then a Beastie Boy, and most recently Hansel (with Gretal in tow). I forget my point about all this reminiscing. Is there a point to make?

There seems to be a recurring theme for the effeminate role mixed with a few plights as womanizer or heartthrob, brought down to earth with the holy of holies. Fuck it... enjoy yourselves all ye and everyone. A shoutout to Bobcat in the great Northwest, may ye prevail in the hippie motherland, get down on the shuffleboard at The Brotherhood, and drink deeply of our finest microbrews.

Winter coming...

A heavy snowfall overnight in the mountains that rise so abruptly from sealevel. Each face obscured in part by a rising cloud out of hemlock and spruce. Every scene reminds me of a japanese silk painting encouraging a little imagination with the spaces between.

Everythings gone black and white. A week for the leaves to change color and the wind to rip them away. Out in the sound an endless row of white caps blurring on the eye toward the Mountain and around the horn to open sea. Amazing how the fallen snow brings such contour to distant landscapes. Before we had these two-dimensional cliffs of land walling in this port town, and now sweeps plateau and bluff and deep shoots for slide and avalanche.

I was thinking about someone... and it was making me glad again, cos i'd been missing it for a while. At work pulling carts around and stocking a grocery store, went outside to look at the sky. Early morning light coming down, a dark gray turning to pale gray... that was about the extent of it. But down toward the western horizon clouds vacant and light gathering in that open space. This giant frosted crater mountain like Fuji-san aglow and couldn't believe my eyes.

A raven looking down on me from atop the truck. I neared and it remained. I studied its giant beak and puffing feather and finally understood its majesty. After all these years wondering why this large crow held captive the native American: Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Makah, Yupiq...

It takes a while to understand. We need to give it time... sometimes that's the hardest thing to do.

Can i get a witness?...

I looked at the ten-day forecast... i shouldn't have done that~ rain, showers, red flags for high-wind warnings, a general malaise for the whole of Sitka, Alaska.

Went to the grocery last night to pick up a few things for dinner and a bottle of rum. Was in the meat department and saw a middle-aged couple necking in the aisle. Not just a romantic kiss, but heavy petting and deep throat tonguing. Another witness had his mouth a little agog, cart stalled against the deli glass. Poor fellow couldn't believe his eyes. I squeezed my way by the couple ramming my grocery basket into the knee of the engaged man; i couldn't get by clean, they were right in the damn aisle. He barely noticed, just kept on throttling this woman with '80's volume to her hair, and him~ torn jeans with utility belt: measuring tape, hammer, the works.

I actually thought it was kind of cute. I have a tendency of finding myself involved with women who experience massive adversion to public displays of affection. Perhaps that's why i inwardly applaud most affectionate acts i see, unless they're wholly tasteless. I've never minded a glance or two in the direction of my partner and i; most of the glances come from a) admirers of young love ("Look honey, they're in love.", or b) old, embittered, jealous bystanders. And i don't have much problem with either.

My first lover almost got us arrested by lovemaking in a city park. That's certainly one end of the sprectrum; something i wouldn't recommend for a certain level of societal decency and embarrassment. Ever since then, its been more reserved, perhaps~ downhill. Deadfish hands to hold, mouths turned to cheeks, conversations alluding to pda. This is a shoutout to all you couples loving on each other. I raise my glass...

Thoughtful like a motherfucker...

The sun broke at an opportune moment. It'd been raining all day as i worked my hours away on the timeclock... then aboard my bike i rode away from the warehouse with thoughts of freedom and blank expression and a whole expanse of nothing. Down by the beach where all the stones have been beaten smooth and twenty foot tides swallow and unearth the shore, i put my bike aside and looked out for a time. The sun feels good in my eyes as it catches a low autumn zenith and passes down toward the horizon. My body misses it (though i don't claim any emotional imbalance by lack thereof), i let it in when i can. And then out hundreds of yards a deep spout of water gleaning bits of sunlight, shimmering on its descent. A pair of humpbacks zigzagging the Sound of Sitka.

A friend suggested the other day that i may be leaving again soon. She sensed it in words i'd written, not by the sound of my voice. Told me my token shiftiness was pervading all and mused whether a restlessness was creeping up on me again. Could read through it in a letter, see that my direction lay away...

And i look around at this and wonder why... and know she's right. I'm here and yet already leaving. Searching for something, but won't admit it. Because i don't know what it is and the show must go on. And everyday passes so sweetly, whether i'm feeling particularly inspired or not. I'm a living breathing blank with an awful potential for projection and absorption, devouring words on the page and the many personalities around, mimicking and remitting. I orbit ideas as in the (micro)cosmos and follow anything with potential, with merit. I'll follow for a while... there's no other way. As a wise one said, "Hard tellin' not knowin.'"


Mount Edgecumbe~ just beyond those whales...

Driving for dollars.

The rain returned today. I watched it come in from miles out landward. Cold greys swarmed the banks of Mount Edgecumbe, the silent cratered volcano to the east. I could see the sky dropping on open ocean where the jetties point, the end of land and distant rolling waters flattening the horizon. It kept coming and by mid-morning droplets were falling on the windshield of my delivery van. I flipped the dial from blue to red, that's what i did... it cleared the glass of collecting condensation. I turned up NPR and listened to reports of nuclear failure, the G.O.P.'s demise and some crackpot adlib from Tony Blair. Sometimes it's so nice to hear a well-balanced leftist radio program, not too bias, just right.

I could ask the question, what the hell am i doing with my life? I could ask another person this same question and ruin their whole week. Some topics are touchy, that's why i'm going back to not overthinking everything. All of us dream of childhood, the return to unawareness~ bliss. But it's not so bad out here. There's plenty of bullshit; that's to be expected. And then there's all the stuff we put ourselves through unnecessarily. Or if you believe in G-O-D you have all these other things to worry about (cos He doesn't really take care of it, that's just an illusion). So that's why i'm embracing the menial, the mundane, the work of calluses. We need to think more with our bodies and less with our minds. Whatever gets you by...

Maybe it was the rain or the five cups of coffee... something brought me down to earth. I was floating away there on the wings of existentialism. Whenever you've been unaware of the passage of time, such as these past months for me~ self-realization comes at the price of many deductions. It's hard for me to admit i don't feel anything, that i'm not happy nor sad... and so i'll look for another reason until i've gone half-mad. And so i get back up and decide the hell with it anyway. Remember, madmen don't choose it thus... that's my mantra.

Looking for a distraction...

I awoke early this morning to the patter of rain and the hollow roar of water passing through a culvert beyond my porch. With my housemate still asleep i took a pillow into the kitchen and suffocated the coffee grinder as it tore apart the morning's coffee beans. I spent the morning mellow with coffee and a letter. After breakfast i grabbed my shoes and shorts and headed to the gym.

This weekend i joined a rec basketball team made up of fishermen with big bellies and smiles. Surprisingly we've remained in the winner's bracket with two wins. Last night we hung on to beat the High Flyers composed of scrappy men in black, each with a unique rat of a mustache upon their face. Full-press, hacking and 360 bullshit layups that make everyone look bad. Then this morning we played the Tlingit Reign stacked with giant Tlingit natives built like cement walls and about as athletic. I matched up with #34, a quiet native man outweighing me by 75lbs and a few inches higher into the atmosphere. He reminded me of Chief... i know it's in poor taste, but i kept imagining him beneath the hoop and Nickolson screaming, "C'mon Chief put that fuckin' ball in the hoop!" We're heading towards the semifinals tonight and into Sunday.

As i ran on the court for the first time this morning i noticed a familiar face in the crowd. This stunning young woman always with a smile, hair like the raven's feather and eyes constantly following the ball from hand to hand and then up toward the hoop. I see her time and again at the recreation center either shooting hoops or watching the men's pickup game on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her presence made me think of a story i once wrote... we became characters, her involuntarily and dreamy me. If people only knew where my mind wandered...

A DAY IN MARCH

I remember it was a day in early March. There were no clouds to be seen and the sun was gleaming from ninety-three million miles away. It left a cold upon the land, upon the streets. The sun had been shining for a month unchallenged. The old banks of snow on the sidewalks were petrified from the persistent cold, fossils from another season.

I was walking across town with my bare face hidden in the neck of my jacket. I worked on the other end of town in a small restaurant that only served regulars. Not by choice, it just worked out that way. New customers were rare and curious. They made us feel uncomfortable. I remember one time when a new couple walked in hungry and in love. Their clothes spoke for themselves and their accents rung of the big city. All conversation ceased with their entrance. Coffee mugs were gently returned to the countertops; the old stools squeaked as they spun. Everyone turned to look, to study the newcomers. I quickly grabbed two menus and slid from behind the counter. I wanted to save them from this silent interrogation. I wanted to rescue them from the eye of an enormous microscope.

They took a seat by the window and everything returned to normal. The same stories told, the same cups refilled, and watching the same clock spin on point. I’ll never forget that day though. It reminded me of a scene from some old western film. A dusty, spurred Clint Eastwood pushing aside the swinging saloon doors. Somehow that guy always got a lot of attention at the bar. He was a troublemaker. Other cowboys had a way of shutting up whenever he came around.

Sometimes my imagination led to the neglect of customers. I imagined their reaction if Clint, the baddest gunfighter in history, entered the diner and found a seat at the counter. What stories would he tell as he insouciantly cleaned his six-shooter? Maybe he wouldn’t talk at all and just sit there chewing on his cigar. But if he did tell a story, it would be succinct and gripping; he wouldn’t waste words. I had no doubt his stories would beat the ones I heard every day.

“Hey buddy!” The image disappeared. The voice belonged to a truck of a man on the other side of the counter. “How about some of that coffee in my cup,” he said, pushing the mug toward me.
*
That day in March I was heading to work. I didn’t have to be there for an hour, but I liked being early. I’d serve myself a cup of coffee, sit at the counter and read the paper. It was a good way to start the day.

I was walking through the arts district, with its many galleries and cafes where two bucks will buy a cup of coffee. I was peering inside the shop windows, occasionally watching my reflection. That’s when I saw her. I was actually looking at myself when the sun’s glare escaped the glass. I found myself eye to eye with a woman seated at the window. She was sitting with a hot bowl of noodles and a man who was already busily eating. His head was bent over his bowl in hungry concentration. Could have been her husband or boyfriend. Maybe her brother. I only saw the top of his head.

The woman was looking at me. It seems strange to think of it now, but I stopped. Right there in the middle of the sidewalk. An old lady following close ran into my back. She nearly dropped her bag of groceries, but I barely noticed. I heard her curse a few times before she was gone.

The woman in the noodle shop was striking. Hair, dark as a crow, fell passed her chin, covering the sides of her face. She had these small, round ears that stuck out, reminding me of a mouse. Her skin was very pale. I don’t know how long I stood there. I remember our eyes were locked and this little hint of a smile was playing on her lips. Meanwhile, the steam from her bowl of noodles was brushing the window. It eventually covered the entire pane. I found myself once again facing my own reflection.

*
This town isn’t very big; still, I never saw her again. Sometimes I wonder if I’m crazy or at least have the potential. I kept walking that day and by the time I arrived at work, I’d forgotten about her. But in those first two blocks I would’ve stopped everything. I would have bet it all on that stranger with a bowl of noodles.

Across the aisle

I work for a large company... an influential conglomerate of swagger and wealth. This company in question owns the stock i carry in the delivery truck as i service the town of Sitka with soda pop, bread, and other nutritionless snacks. The icon is red, white and blue, patriotic as sin, but premarily blue. Its symbol has stamped the august faces of Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan, New Kids on the Block and most recently Alex ("Pay-Rod") Rodriguez. Like all multi-billion dollar companies who work to keep the small guys small and the fair market free, there is a rival. This pitted company has signed Paula Abdul, Elton John, Santa Claus himself and a bunch of polar bears in their marketing scheme.

When i first began work, the fellow training me flipped the rival with stories of deceit and corruption. He claimed afterhours our product display would be scrambled or front faced with their conspecific product... all by an unseen hand, the Coca-Cola man. Working alongside these guys every day in groceries and stations, he would tutor me never to speak to them. Under the silent understanding, morality, any exchange could be deemed treason and perhaps down the road, perjury. I nodded my head and quietly pondered his words. I felt it would be more to my advantage not to acknowledge his symptons of madness.

A few days later he put in his notice and i moved up, asked for a raise and tra-la-la. This week i've been working on the microcosm of corporate chivalry across the aisle. I began by pointing out that although Pepsi and Coca-Cola are both full of shit, corn syrup, flavorings and the like, the latter is a hell of a lot better. Later we laughed about the sad truth we supply the city's youth with liquid crack in the form of countless energy drinks and coffees. Little elementary addicts we laughed, ha-ha-ha.

Later that week i left my lights on in the parking lot as i drug a few carts into the grocery. Within minutes i had killed the battery and this monstrosity of a truck was parked inert, hazards flashing, blocking the entrance like the Lazarus stone. The manager started to chew on my head, her gaze burning into me seeking out the twenty-something irresponsibilities and blunderings. Then in the distance, a large red truck rolling, fake painted condensation on her side and bubbles of carbonation. To the rescue with red and black cables procured, i was saved like Joe Lieberman by the Republicans for so many years. A gallant blurring of lines; a truly bipartisan experience...

Awaiting the delivery...

It's a late saturday night with feet kicked up and a few simple beverages down, perhaps a few more to go. A certain balance regained with the righting in the bloodline... a terribly debaucherous friday night behind me. With the morning mused light i watched my housemate drain every drop of vitamin c from the house with two close-rounded trips to the fridge to wrap his lips around the aseptic orange juice jug. Poor bastard, poor me i was thinking. And then thinking of Bill Cosby and that beautiful skit on the plight of humanity, our desire to make something of friday night and get out there, get loose and soused and have a good time. Then the subsequent over-indulgence, queasy feelings and an end to 'fun,' we rest our heads against the cool rim of the toiletseat. And the realization in sapped confusion that we earned this, our nine to five, weekday run for the money has bought in time, effort, cool change, the ability to invest ourselves in such stupid endeavors.

That's what i was thinking with the morning light and a coming day of something bordering on regret, what the hell was all that for? Questions like, did the fun i have equal or better the consequence of consumption, my body's rejection to a gross amount of stimulant and depressant? And then two answers to one question; i saw it coming...

I live in a new town. Its been here all along, something in my eyes as the newcomer, this idea of rewound chronology and genesis. This quasi-acuity belongs to subjection, a thing i've been guilty of in more than one instance. I admit it yet it nearly seems healthy... progressive, as if perhaps i was bordering on truth: the truth that all situations no matter how misleading are results of my own projection and spin. The longer i live and the more absurd the situations become, the more difficulty i have in believing the external sentience of circumstance. Outcomes always tend toward the appropriate. Perhaps that gives some standing to our new-age friends and jungian vouchers of coincidence and proper cause and effect. I never could find merit in the argument though the supposition rang true. Perhaps this is my way of dealing with constant travel and a high turnover rate of employment and company. Maybe i'm mission minded and need to inject this experience called life with the false notion of engaging in a sociological experiment. Yeah right... ain't it good though.

In the latest chapter of possible demise, perchance nirvana... i have acquired a beautiful six-three jobbyjob driving truck for a distribution company. I sling soda and bread and other partially hydrogenated products to the community of Sitka grocery stores and shortchange convenience stores. It pays and has something to teach, though i'm still not positive as to which avenue that may lead.

And so my weekend come and awaiting the delivery of some chinese food made by a kitchen of polynesians who call the great gray north their home. Its rained nearly three weeks straight. If it weren't raining the population would deem it a 'nice' day regardless of any other conditions. We're getting out the chopsticks and pouring another drink...

Back into the world...

It took a long time to fulfill the contract I'd signed with the federal government. I was a speck of life in the wilderness of central Idaho for the second season running. I represented pocketchange of deep pockets, an afterthought from the dislocation of naturalist to biologist in the caste of this inanimate institution. Get the data. That was my job. Be safe, alone in the wilderness on steep terrain with the huckleberry bears... but still, get the fucking data! So that's what i did and when the season ended i thanked the big guy in the sky and went back into the world.

With the late summer shining through pulled curtains and Ray Charles singin' "the mess around" on the radio, an afternoon nap seemed in order. Third week of the inbetween, unemployed and terribly content with it. The phone rang as i began to nod, friends inviting me to dinner one town over~ in Centralia. With nothing else in mind and the fridge and cupboards wholly devoid of dinner i agreed.

I grew up here in southwestern Washington between a farm and a city, somewhere in the gray area. The lush valleys bending from the Olympics into alluvial deposits of meandering waterways leading up and up, plateauing above subterranean notches harboring immense canyons at the base of Mount Rainier and the fellow Cascade Range. And down there in the lowlands between peaks lies Lewis County, my beautiful semi-illiterate gem called home. It's good land, procures bounteous crops and feeds the mouths of stock and citizen with ease.

When i was coming of age it became apparent that my town, and many of those surrounding, had died with the ailing timber industry. Died from poor stewardship of the land, died from lack of interest, too many vices without income or sufficient subsidy. Desparate as an enfeebled third world country, the twin cities of Lewis County, Centralia and Chehalis, begged for new money to save its economy and well-being. And then a miracle like the angel Gabriel, an outpour from our democratic metropolitan dwellars into the outskirts of our red state. A miracle, Yes! Money arrived due to overpopulation in neighboring cities.

And who would have thought it, streets were cobbled and cleaned, century-old buildings renovated, trees and gardens tended. And then the truly unthinkable, above the dilapidated beauty college, between tattoo shops and book store fronts for the deal of meth, a wine bar moved in. I got inebriated and happy and thought less about the future with my mind and more with my body... and with that came a simple understanding. That there is no such thing as preparation, never has been. Out into the world again, a new home, a new place, an everchanging yet static me.

This year's love

Welcome. I'm beginning a new essay series called "Serious Corner," where i'm going to discuss more grown-up topics than in recent history. To begin i'd like to mention that i'm wearing a new pair of pre-worn jeans, which are incredibly comfortable and handsome. What does this truly say about our society? Perhaps, fundamentally, that we would prefer the result without the labor. Get me on that wagon.

It's a red letter day and i'm an amalgal failue. I'm feeling oracular to the theories of love and conception. It takes parents to have children and children to make parents. It takes connection to bring two people together and commitment to consummate marriage. Love and/or an accident can play major roles in unity. It's okay if mommy yells a little and has a habit of burning things in the oven. And, it's okay if daddy takes off, drinks a little too much, and leaves the toilet seat up. But, if there's too many undesirable items on each person's list, chances are likely the relationship won't survive.

I find that it's terribly easy to love someone that loves you. I'm speaking regardless of whether that love is tinged with pity or egomaniacism, as often the case. I'm also being inconclusive about the probability of relationship deterioration due to one-sided madness in love affairs.

Essentially, everyone is on a quest for a healthy habit of love. This is an ecumenical law. To counter what i said earlier, it's also fairly easy to love someone that doesn't love you... but that's not the point. We're talking about 100% possibilities for the one swooning your way. And i'm speaking of "love" in the sense of caring and consideration (The Big C's), not of passion, jealousy or infatuation. Due to our quest's completion in finding another, future recondite issues may be temporarily overlooked. One may quickly see that their chosen partner makes for an unsound pairing, yet it's difficult to sever ties notwithstanding.

I believe that we will fight for a crummy love. We will try again and again and again. We will wound all those present. On the fortieth revelation of incompatibility we will leave our partner. And then begin anew...

Booze and boo-birds

My mother and i are true baseball fans of a losing team. My father has yet to elucidate his favor; but, he doesn't seem to mind drinking in the stands. Rooting for a loser helps absolve the absurdity of professional sports. In other words, we may be fans and consumers of a grossly irrelevant and diseased product, but at least we're not Yankee fans, right?

In moments of natural pentothal, we admit that our adulations and afflictions for the Seattle Mariners are ridiculous to say the least. But there's something there that relates directly to what my parents love to call "The human condition." This reference can be made numerous times in a singular conversation. There's some humble admittance to being human, a quality of entertainment both superfluous and inane, that proves to be unburdening. It's the accession to being human and accepting all that that entails, which releases us from unnecessary punishment.

In one of yesterday's ballgames, a fan threw a tube of muscle pain reliever at Barry Bonds as he ran into the outfield. The fan was immediately arrested and taken out of the park. This is the second time already for Barry. A few weeks ago in San Diego a fan threw a syringe at him. Apparently a new demarcation between fanaticism and humor is being established.

It was always fun to boo Jose Canseco; everyone enjoyed themselves and could be seen smiling as they assaulted the airwaves with the letter 'b.' No harm was ever done. It was wholly necessary to boo Alex Rodriguez when he accepted $252 million and claimed that the money wasn't a concern. And who could forget the creationist Carl Everett who lives in a world without space travel, gay people, or dinosaurs. I'd boo him except he's on my team now.

As i head toward Seattle to catch another game at Safeco Field, i hope for only three things: that we may drink good beer in our $600 million stadium, find a Texas Ranger (the visiting team) to blithely harass, and win the fucking game!

Fecundity and Florida

Seated on Park Avenue sipping a two-dollar cup of Cafe arabica (i.e. a sloppily grown and roasted cup of Brazilian joe), i was watching the flow of golf carts carrying the filthy rich residents of Boca Grande, a Floridian island off the southwestern coast. Thinking about my day thus far...

I took a walk early this morning and saw a brilliant red disc rise out of Charlotte Bay, a sight that everyone beholds each morning. Zigzagging through the quiet streets of an upper-upper-class caucasian community toward one of the many beaches and adjacent mangroves. Binoculars about my neck, bag of books biting into my shoulder and feeling one of the most pleasant states of euphoria. Observed a cluster of staunchly perched brown pelicans outnumbered by a company of caspian terns and double-crested cormorants. Further down an osprey sailing over a few arctic terns who hovered still above the water spying herring below the surface.

On the way back to town i decided to attempt a good cup of coffee, something Florida sadly lacks. Nearing the cafe i found a banyan tree and neighboring palm full of chattering green parrots and a smaller band of monk parakeets. Thinking this is certainly a good life i stepped into the cafe. And that's where i began... I was seated outside on the sidewalk trying to find a comfortable position in a poorly structured metalloid chair, a task i failed. Looking out at the future skin-cancer patients and flipflop fatties with whiteknuckle grips on their tiki-bar prize maids. White, white everywhere... not the people, but the color. White tennis shoes and bleached, starched shirts... always collared. White jaguars and hummers. White pickets fences and golf carts parked on the lawn. Everyone is experiencing symptons of burgeoning vitamin-D levels.

I haven't always cared much for the tropical regions of this earth. They seem to attract a certain type of person, either inherently poor yet often hospitable and kind third-world product, or as one songwriter sings "and in the other corner(wearing the white trunks) today's tourists already sweating." But for every thesis an antithesis. People in one corner and birds in the other. And for every day another species unseen always moving northward with the warming climate. And for every negative thought, I realize time may go... and i could spend a long time here not talking to a soul. Content...

And they all grow up... but some grow stranger than others.

People in the Northwest talk a lot

For every one of us there's a conversation that can never be had. Not a finite ecumenical law for every subject on the planet, but a profound thought that every individual experiences uniquely for which they can't communicate. A certain gripping realization or theory for why we do any number of things, in any given situation. I don't know what mine is... i thought i knew a few weeks ago.

Recently i was visiting an old friend in Seattle, the city that looks nice but has never once roused a warm feeling or personal invitation to sojourn. It reminds me of something vacuous and hungry. What does it want i wonder? Anyway... we were talking late one night after dinner and i was invitedly experiencing one of my frequent neurotic episodes and wanted to share it with her. A quick personal defintion: psychotic~ everyone is crazy. neurotic~ i'm crazy. I often enjoy these feelings which are symptomatic of discovering my physical location. Think about it... 'i am here.' That thought procures the easiest access to a certain sensation. 'Wow, no shit, i am here.'

Depending on where exactly you're at, there's no telling how much you might trip out. I don't like the term 'to trip out.' It's impoverished and connotes in every negative direction. For theory sake, i've been thinking about creating my own word for my own defintion (like all those yahoos we use to read... remember?). I would like to call it objection. It's effectual placement of becoming present, and subsequent observation of yourself.

You know how it is, you see old friends, family and lovers and your insides can be muddled. You don't know what you're feeling or thinking, exactly, except the bold cognition that something strange is taking place. I love that feeling, i can learn so much about myself and my surroundings. Perhaps it has little true value, but it seems mentally productive.

I often assume that everyone has similar influences and tendencies. Therefore with the right words or in the right instance we can communicate a common, yet often unbreached idiosyncrasy. I was asking my friend about this in relation to my frequent objection in social circumstances. Does everyone trip out like i do while watching people, or conversing, or witnessing any number of commonplace events? She looked at me a long while and i was pretty convinced she was going to ask for further explanation about just what the fuck i was talking about. Instead she calmly answered 'No, i think it's more rare than that.' And she said it in a way, that at once denuded i was no unique specimen, but that it was okay. That got me thinking about that old rag 'I'm okay, you're okay' that was situated on my bookshelf somewhere between John Gray and Deepak Chopra, and i had to have a good laugh. Are you okay? Goddamn i hope so man....

Songs about Jackson

Every singer/songwriter must have at least one nostalgic song about Jackson... Tennessee, Mississippi, Minnesota. Ballads and odes in sweet remembrance and longing. There's a girl waiting there, the smell of pine trees or some such thing, the color of some polluted river. It's an american archetypal placename for musicians in the same way that Caroline is, though like many others i've never actually met a Caroline.

I wonder if any of those songs are talking about Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I'm leaning towards 'no.' I recently returned to this town and it wasn't due to a two month appetition for its rich edification. It has been two months since i left this place and it certainly wasn't time yet to revisit any old self or previous community. My old partner needed some help moving her things a few states over. I wasn't up to much of anything and volunteered to help.

I rolled into town on the first evening after driving 900 hundred miles in twelve hours. I was looking in the rearview mirror astounded at the long line of trucks behind me and nearly rear-ended the Dodge Ram in front of me. I made it just in time for the sledneck 'hill climb' that draws thousands of snow machiners from all over wyoming, utah, and idaho. Men and women gather around their snow machines and hold epic tailgate parties before ascending the local steep mountain for a record time. This is a laughable rough-and-tumble group that reminds me of a slightly watered down Hell's Angels gathering. The presence of this crowd added with the town's own extreme citizenry reminds me of some dangerous chemistry solution, imagine two vaporous vials mixed to explosion.

I'm in a different mindset this time around and i thought it might be a good time to explore my reasons for repulsion to this area. In the past, decisions and motivations were muddled in the unsuited habitat for optimum growth. Sometimes i like to imagine myself as a cholorophyllic body searching for select niche conditions. This time around i feel more objective and freefloating, not in search of grounding. I was hoping this would allow me to mull things over better.

An epiphany struck me at the Cadillac Grille and Bar. It was happy hour and i had a few beers in front of me and a burger on the way. The place was packed and the noise deafening. I was feeling particularly queer and couldn't keep my eyes off the women in my vicinity. Not a single female soul that i could find was timid to the eye, and i found myself freely staring at women staring back at me. What struck me at first was how i didn't feel a single drop of real connection or sensuality in these episodic staredowns. At first i internally fought this by pointing out to myself that i really wasn't that special, nor much of an apparent catch anyhow and perhaps this was a good revelation. But by further introspection i discovered the true cause of my antipathy...

When i first meet someone, whether they be the deemed future friend or partner, i try to display a panoply of what i think are decent traits. First on my list is sincerity, because even the least intelligent of people with sincerity are worthy friends. The next thing would likely be consideration, show that you're actually listening and interested. These are the top two, and the list definitely goes on... In Jackson, Wyoming people don't care about sincerity in its purer forms. They much prefer to burke the trait or accept some obviously transparent and generic version of it. This immediately cuts my tactic of initial connection with a person. Secondly, you may be holding a light or heavy conversation with someone, but this in no way keeps others (and everyone 'knows' everyone) from at any point crashing the scene. In this way you're left with splintered points and dialogue and you find your company quickly disjointed, attention defecit, in a blink of an eye holding conversation with a newcomer. It's cheap and schizophrenic, and if you're not up to the challenge of gregarious roaming laconic devolutions, then you'll certainly go mad!

Autonomy... wireless

I have a list i keep in my pocket. It's ongoing, an equal measure of pen or pencil scribbled on old receipt paper and letters. This is where i enlist myself to certain chores or tasks to fulfill by day/weeks end. In the past months i have had many names written on these, reminding myself to reach certain people and say hello... or whatever.

Equally relevant is the fact i broke my phone during a San Francisco argument (i dropped the thing in between a sigh and a scream), and i've lost most desire to discuss antiseptically life's latest on any telephone. I feel bad (sometimes) for all the things i've neglected to do, and the people i haven't connected with. The brunt of the occasion is my moietous girlfriend, who believes that such a thing is impossible, rather, this resolution reflects my Dolean ineptness and austerity. Poor girl!

This particular person has a knack for calling tri-daily with often a kind word, but otherwise nothing to report. Oh phone people! Please understand us not-phone people! She has never made my lists because her name, instead, has been engraved upon the inside of my fucking brain! C-A-L-L {blank}! For some reason the possibility of calling becomes even less enticing. And for all you out there that might understand me (Andrew!), it is no shoestring burden to be the sole focus of anything. Unless you like that sort of thing...

LoseCo.

Last week i fell into the grips of a WinCo Foods in Longview, Washington. It didn't help matters that i was severely sleep-depraved and on the verge of collapse due to hunger. I sadly followed my cousin inside the automatic jaws of the front entrance. One of the cart collectors was bringing in fifty carts; her metal caravan was led by herself and the rear brought up by an automated 'short circuit' with a blinking light. I'd never seen anything like it...

I immediately felt familiar as i entered the store. WinCo has been popping up everywhere alongside Ross, Starbucks, DollarTree, Home Depot and Target throughout the West. Every store is designed exactly the same, with the exact same products and the exact same music playing overhead. I was marvelling at this homogenized world lit by an overwhelming voltage of ultraviolet lighting, while simultaneously trying to avoid being hit by a cart. Despite the incredibly widened aisles for 'economy-size' everything (including the customers), one needs to hold a wary eye to avoid being run over. It reminds me of playing that old game Frogger on Atari. Trying to cross these streets and intersections without being crushed.

So i was wandering about, checking the deals, and trying to make the time pass quickly while my cousin filled his cart. I began noticing the outrageous prices that no ma and pa store could ever compete with. And then admist the disgust, some sort of quasi-shame for ever having shopped there emerged. I found chicken for .25 cents a pound (not on sale), perhaps dog-food grade but it looked normal. Boxes of Post cereal for a buck, all sorts of out-of-season produce for under in-season prices. Apples the size of softballs, bell peppers of electric christmas colors, chard with ears like skunk cabbage, and avocados for fifty cents a pop. Fifty fuckin' cents!

I couldn't take it anymore, i needed a drink. So i ran to the wine and beer to find endcaps of bullshit wine for pennies and decent wine for pocket change. Domestic beer giveaways and ungodly priced imports. It would be like pulling into a chevron today and finding gas costs 79 and 9/10 a gallon (the first price i remember seeing as a kid).

This isn't winning people! We are not winning here at WinCo. I was feeling a little foreboding and despondent and felt like shouting this ananity. Deciding it was time to leave i began weaving through the customers and their bereft mountains of stock. Approaching the sunlight, passing through the sliding doors, a great weight was lifted. If only there was a place like this for illicit drugs and other paraphanelia. I would love to check a shaker of blow, some various tablets with bin numbers written on dime bags, and a book of stamps. I think i'd be a club card member at that place and i'd still bring my own bags.

Cars on the lawn

Washington is a beautiful state. It's where i'm from and i like it for it's diverse landscape and ecosystems. Mountains, rivers, deserts... many species of bird and fish. I only come back to this state once a year, if that, to visit old friends and relatives and reconvene with the many old selves i've once been. It's my place of transition between ending and beginning, a place where i try to revisit old feelings, find my position, and move on. Time stops here, it's infinite and for that reason perhaps dangerous.

Does it ever seem like the most beautiful states have the worst, least intelligent stewards of the land? Think about that Montana governor who wants to raze the entire eastern half of his state for its coal. Creating a clear diesel gas that's somehow a new source of energy to relieve reliance on the Arab world. Or beautiful Idaho and its anti-semitic past; haven for the AN. Or perhaps the best example~ Alaska. Home to the Murkowskis, the governor Frank and his daughter Lisa the senator. Always trying to tap ANWR, giving public lands to indian corporations for mining and timber harvest, applying taxpayer money to cruiseline cleanup and the aimless tankers running aground. Or Maine's stalwort republican Olympia Snowe backing Bush on many agendas, few representing protection of Maine's pristine lands and waters.

Is there perhaps some invisible universal law requiring certain state residents to check their brains at the border? For example, here in Washington everyone loves to talk about television. 90% of homes, whether they are grandiose or more likely a manufactured unkept box or double-wide, have at least one satelite dish beaming down hundreds of channels; the dish located above numerous cars on the lawn. Parts cars, fixers-upers, old skeletons of the past. But television, above the rest, is the least avoidable conversation here, second to cars.
Question: Did you see the episode of "[insert show]" last night?
Answer 1: No, i've never even heard of that.
Answer 2: Yeah sure [even though i've never heard of it].

I've learned to switch between the two answers for the simple reason of avoiding further discussion on the topic. In many cases Answer 1 will be recieved by thorough explanation, including pantomime, copious dialogue and an altogether intensely boring account of uninteresting material. All to which one can choose to laugh politely or quietly disregard. Who could ever expect one to watch television vicariously through another, and enjoy it? First-hand television shows are difficult enough in themselves.

Answer 2 i've learned is a truly brilliant solution to this problem. By answering "yes," one can limit the conversation to a few replies such as, "Oh yeah, that was a good one," or a less committed, "Uh-huh." A tremendous breakthrough in communication.

California girls...

Awoke this morning by the soft patter of rain above my head. Lying in bed with the muted light of an early hour, low clouds clinging to Tamalpais Valley. This soft unhurried rain feels tropical, patient in the freefall. It'll come down all day just like this.

As i reheat yesterday's coffee i look out toward my car and watch the dust and dirt wash away. Yesterday's travels took me through Donner Pass, the roads ragged with ruts from heavy trucks and chains biting into the asphalt. Along the median and between lanes mounds of a copious brown snow full of rocks and gravel among other things. And being the small crippled sedan at a funeral pace, i was constantly abaft rigs kicking this shit awash the windshield.

Nearing the bay area, two lanes turned to seven. I knew i was getting close. Cars began following by feet almost in askance of a good rear-end job. And a fine smell of eucalyptus pulled in through an open window. I parked outside my friend's house north of the bridge, took my bicycle down from it's rack and washed it with a garden hose. Pedaled through Mill Valley and San Rafael along the water's edge of San Francisco Bay.

Over the bridge and into the city. I passed a hundred beautiful Asian tourists looking puerile and excited with cameras and maps in their hands. Oh my lord this city is full of beautiful women! I took the Presidio and Masonic speeding along with the cars, reading quasi-progressive witful bumperstickers through Goldengate Park toward my brother's house. I felt good, dissolved in the anonymity of a city.

Meet me at the mall

I write this from the 'biggest little city in the world,' a veritable tank of bloodsucking fish. Sipping mount gay rum without the rocks, couldn't seem to find any in the freezer. Recently returning from a walk scaling the pressure hosed sidewalks of Reno. Visiting a few friends along my travels in route to god knows where.

I went down to take a look at the city. It's economic and cultural death is apparent, similar to the thin surface of Detroit. Yet it's hard to say with my years if it ever held true life at all. And by 'true' i mean facile, progressive, intelligent life. Every street seemed to be under construction. Advertisements cried out catches with a lack of thought, a lack of caring anymore (even about business).

I was sitting by the Truckee River that runs through downtown. A pretty little river with cobblestone banks and a flat green iridescence. A pallid sky awash with high cirrus clouds pulled a light breeze atop the city. I had my freshly shaven head bared to the wind and was soaking up the most warmth i've felt in months. It struck me there, my youth and the way i have forgotten it. I have become so adept and insouciant with my pinball lifestyle. Often i come to new places with my old things and then fleet swiftly barely looking back. It has become prosaic; my reaction time running second to the spontaneity of moving overnight.

And sitting there by the water today i recalled an old physical sensation that resides somewhere in the gut. That feeling that speaks of how small i am. How much space resounds between what we deem solid things. It's the sensation of immensity and it somehow gives way to a feeling of good fortune. I start breathing deeper, grasping independence and thanking somebody/something for the ability to live so freely. This experience draws easily from the innervation of youth. I don't know why... perhaps it's the admittance of weakness or smallness in the face of vast dynamism.

I haven't felt that way in some time. I remember nearly a decade back walking along the streets of New York City. I was fifteen years old, with a heavy backpack... a callow young man with barely a whisker on my face. At that age i felt the world to be a much more immense, active, and sometimes overwhelming place than i do now. Since then i've grown more callous and taken discomfort or challenge for granted or welded it for kicks. But today i remembered my youth and how lucky i am to be here.

Competition in California

I once read that "nature uses extraordinarily ingenious techniques to avoid conflict and competition, and that cooperation is extraordinarily widespread throughout nature." Always of naturalist mindset, i have contested that humans were an inscrutable part of nature. And yet, ever since i arrived in California i have done the complete opposite of this quote. I have rapt myself in contest~ skiing, playing basketball and shooting pool. Perhaps this is a reflection of paucity similar to an iron-deficient anemic eating dirt. I don't know... i just feel like winning right now and i certainly wasn't doing that in my domestic situation (as i like to refer to it).

And that's where my car comes in. A lost cause, a gauranteed pit of monetary malformity. I have inked myself to the American tradition of car-love. My car has a name, Wheaton; a gender, female; a personality, loyal; and i talk to her and rub the dashboard like every other goddamn car-lover.

I believe my car is now the role-player of challenge and adversity. Perhaps a sobering additive to my streak of competitive play. I expect this vehicular drama to further propel me in the wise teachings of balance, a furthermore important libran enterprise. So instead of summiting Mount Bali for the abolition of my wiseacring, i undertake the court of car maintenance. A spectacle that no American can demur.

Okie on the road

I was Tom Joad pushing a loaded sedan westward, fingers white to the knuckle, back aching hunched over the wheel. I counted four white-out storms to cross my path. One delivered in northern Idaho established spindrifts across the roadway which bit into the wheelwells with the sound of sand.

Hadn't passed a night soundly in four revolutions... could count the hours on my fingers and toes. My eyes felt dry and irritated, drinking coffee like water. Sixteen hours passed like that; stopping once to watch the Steelers/Colts first half at the first Nevadan casino i could find. Ordered two beers and a burger and watched the game standing. I could sense discomfort all around me. The bar ghouls made nervous by my erect position. I couldn't sit though, my posterior numb and aching from the past six hundred miles.

I left the bar lighter, climbed into my car and pulled into the nearest station. While filling up the tank i noticed a curious drip falling near the toe of my shoe. Crouching down i inspected a slight gas leak to compliment further the demise of my vehicle. I lurched inside once more and gritted my teeth for the final two hundred miles, a constant eye to the gauge and remembering the mechanic's recent mention of a small exhaust leak. Wondering if i'd ever register the moment when my car blew sky high, gas igniting, a nearby bank of snow momentarily reflecting red and orange. Too much... I turned up the dial to sportsradio and played dumb the rest of the way to California.

"Three hundred thousand in California and more coming. And in California the roads full of frantic people running like ants to pull, to push, to lift, to work. For every manload to lift, five pairs of arms extended to lift it; for every stomachful of food available, five mouths open."
~The Grapes of Wrath

Moving on...

This will be a week to make stories for the future. The one in which i load a car of only four gears with everything i own and head west yet again. A nervous twitch has reached my eyes and an aching hollow has entered my stomach. My nerves bend from the obvious trials of vehicular peril, but also from the current exigency of my relationship. It seems to be coming from every direction just as the snow flies outside in the latest snowstorm.

A few weeks back i made the resolution to leave this town. In all likelihood it will find me both thankful and regretful. I have a knack for letting just about everything influence my decision-making. Always some reasoning to eliminate the possibility of future grievances for the present choice of route. This one is even more ponderous and ambagious then the last. Perhaps my erstwhile partner made matters of splitting and relocation a far simpler matter. She had her mind made up and foresaw a future without me. Whereas i saw a ten foot jesus and flashing arrow to take my leave. That was the tale of last year's getaway from Juneau, Alaska.

One of my favorite nuances of gathering my things together again~ is discovering all the junk i've quickly compiled since the last venture. And managing to sort and discard all the unnecessary possessions leaves me light, literally and figuratively. It's a painful, yet needed experience. I feel that i frequently need to purge my supplies. One day i hope to discover how i can do this, while still remaining in a given town.

Let's celebrate relativity!

On New Year’s Eve a great thaw struck the land. Temperatures soared into the high thirties and forties. Ancient banks of snow and ice melted to form behemothic puddles of mud and slush. Work was slightly discomfiting, boorish customers complained of competitive prices and quasi-generous yippies donated bags of outworn clothing, requesting write-off slips to save money in April.

I slipped out of work early and went and bought a six-pack. Walked a few blocks to the old Teton Theatre, which opened in 1941. Went in for the matinee; found an aisle to myself, kicked my feet over the front seats and popped the cap of a beer. For three hours I watched a rampaging colossal ape pound T-Rexes, save beautiful blonds, and climb New York Skyscrapers. It was a very enjoyable experience at matinee prices.

Meanwhile the plastic-surgery gang was readying in Times Square. A million gathered to watch the Ball drop with Dick, while another three-hundred million poised in the eye of their teles for the unrivaled kairotic moment. I imagined the streets in the morning littered with shredded paper confetti, perhaps some top-secret documents shivered for the celebration. Dick was having his make-up applied for the fourth time, his toupee realigned and pace-maker set for the r-u-s-h.

Around that time I was walking home. I was thinking about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, about the subsequent celebration underway which I had no intention of joining. I was also remembering an obsolete newspaper article of last week’s. Something about scientists adding one “leap” second to the world’s atomic clock. They were doing it out of general boredom and lack of physical or mental exercise; due in part to the Earth’s rotational slowing. Apparently, this would be the 23rd second added since 1972.

It brought to mind the fact that not only are our views on the passage of time persistently different from one to the next, but we also live within the bounds of cut-and-dry time zones which are difficult to scientifically posit. That coupled with the fact that of the five clocks in my home (wristwatch, two alarms, telephone, and oven) no two are the same or even within a minute of telling. This fact never seems to ill-effect anything substantially. What an incredibly insignificant notion and invalid piece for the front page!

It recalled a time before the year 2000 when I shared a home in Olympia with my first lover. We lived in a habitable duplex a few miles from the campus I was attending. Our shelves were full of new age, self-work type literature that we heartily hustled into our home and devoured as prophecy. Metaphysical adventure novels, I-ching translations, and numerous astrological texts. One day in accordance to our hopes of enlightenment we veiled or stored away all the clocks and exiled two mirrors to the closet, in the company of the water-heater. We hoped that such travails would repay us somehow. We were young, optimistic, naïve and in love.

It’s interesting how thoughts and memory connect together haphazardly. An invisible chain of recollection sustains and continues itself. Seemingly unaffiliated remembrances spur the propagation of deeper introspection. I was caught in such a cyclical bind.

Nearing midnight I fastened my yaktrax coils to my running shoes, dressed smartly for the cold, and donned a headlamp. Heading for downtown my feet glued to the slick sidewalk and waded through icy puddles. I always feel like Spiderman when I wear these traction apparati. I reached the city centre at the stroke of midnight. Strolling through the downtown park I heard the collective roar of drunken half-hearted whooping. Lecherous ghouls were leaning forward on pretty women with their drooling labios puckered for osculation. Likewise, unfettered lassies crooned for a little romance in the tight confines of a sour saloon.

I couldn’t stop smiling as I looked up into the sky, peering at the few stars visible above the lamplight. Fireworks lit the sky sporadically, lifting from the backyards of mansions and three-car garages. This is how I brought in the last New Year when I lived on the Atlantic. I spent the evening alone walking and jogging the streets at midnight.

I like the lonely sound of distant voices collectively hollering. And in this snowy setting, I reminded myself of a content Grinch overlooking the Whos singing carols in Whoville. I could hear elk on the refuge bugling in the distance. I imagined their frightened eyes musing the city and its idiosyncratic racquet from afar. I thought about the dogs and cats huddled in doorways and beneath tables, scared as shit. And then I walked home.