Acute Mountain Sickness

I learned my lesson: Do not attempt to travel from 85 ft. of elevation (Sonoma) to 11,250 (Henry's Hut at Vail) in a short period of time, and believe that you'll be okay to go skiing, at 46.

Altitude sickness was the result, for the first time ever. Instead of spending the day skiing I spent it unable to breath and dizzy, making skiing impossible, or at least not much fun.

For the first time in a very long time I went to the medics, hoping that they had something to offset the effects. They did, but they could not give me anything, even oxygen, without also turning me over to the rescue medics to then be taken off of the mountain.

After lying flat on my back for 45 minutes I still had a resting heart-rate of 108. The ski patrol was concerned that it might be a heart attack, though I refused to believe such a thing openly. The friend that I went with repeatedly insisted that he believed this to merely be a menopausal reaction to nature, or perhaps a secondary interaction between excess fat and high altitude exertion. 

Anything seemed possible, but the longer I sat in the medics front room the more I wished to descend to the restaurant bar that was partway down the mountain and enjoy a nice cold beer. A thing that I eventually did, even skiing down to the lodge that sits a bit lower on the mountain.

Once there, I saw a flyer for a famed English dj who was playing that night. The bartender, while talking to someone else, had said that he had met him earlier in the day, and that he had "seemed like a nice guy" and was supposed to be a legend in that world, though he had never heard of him before, which I found hard to believe, but then realized that it was not only plausible, but likely for most. Not everyone had lived their lives inside of empire warehouses.

I was spending a fair amount of money yesterday, only to feel old. Though those two things need not be connected, they were certainly beginning to feel as if they were, and are.

My friend spent his day babysitting me. I felt much better from the base of the mountain, where we sat and had more beers. In fact, the day took a sharp turn for the better once I could breathe. My health improved with each sip.

The drive home seemed unusually long. I recommended that we drive into Boulder and have sushi, which we also did. 

Once you're burning through money it is best not to sift among the ashes.

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Foot Barnacles

Today, Vail. 

We will bring beers and something to barbecue to the top of the mountain and grunt at our good fortune.

I have always relied on Rachel to buy kid's presents. She is very good at it. I just spent an hour on Amazon.com to finally just give up and order Jenga and Connect Four, only to find out this is 2015, and kids have moved on.

So,  I cancelled those and now I am tasked with shopping for a birthday present for a seven year old, maybe eight years old. Probably seven. 

I should know how old my nephew is, though I'm not sure what I would do with the information. I suppose I could remind him how old he is, that might be novel. Though I assume a crazy uncle knowing how old you are also ceased impressing kids at some point in the mid 19th century.

I could show him my bunions. Kids just love that sort of thing. 

Right now, I am struggling to keep up with a three year old. He is partially pictured above, bunkered at the beach, happy as a clam. I was playing with a lens that I rarely use. It's an outside lens, almost exclusively for me, anyway. Others might not feel the same, I'm sure.

I can feel the Super Bowl approaching. That's mainly because I am in a house that is preparing for it. Two large tvs arranged in expectation of game day, talk of roasted lamb and spare ribs, the variety and number of beers needed. 

All of it.

I like sports, but a part of me just wishes to lie motionless on a couch, listening to Vivaldi, white curtains wafting in the winds, expectedly waiting for Spring to appear.

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The Offshore Maid Mafia

Day two in Colorado was spent uneventfully. I worked the entire day through, with astonishingly prodigious results. Then, my buddy and I went and played pool, had a few beers, ate some bar food. I lost every game except for one in which he scratched on the eight ball. It was the last ball on the table, so it was at least a close game. The others were not.

You lose many things being a parent, the ability to play pool is one of them. It requires a calmness of mind that has gone the way of.... well, it seems never to return.

Today is my functional "Friday." I took tomorrow off to go skiing in Vail with the same buddy. I am looking forward to it, greatly. It has been some time since I've been. Has it really been four years... I suppose that I could have gone when Rachel, Rhys and I were last here, but I chose to babysit the boy, letting Rachel go instead. She deserved it. A mother's task is difficult, and deserving of breaks whenever possible. A father, on the other hand, has it made. The kid adores me, all I have to do is keep feeding him chocolate.


It may sound odd, but I miss simply sitting in a hotel room all day. It is somehow centering and peaceful for me. That is, unless housekeeping does not understand what you are still doing in the room. In Breckenridge they knocked three or four times while I was trying to nap with the sick boy, until I finally had to nearly scream at them, partly naked and in the hallway, hissing exasperated whispers at the top of my range, that maybe, just maybe... they should check with the front desk. 

The topsy-turvy world of reservations can be dynamic and confusing.

It has always perplexed me, there seems to be no relationship whatsoever between the front desk and any housekeeping team of any hotel, worldwide. Computers are worse than unusable in the face of this estranged relationship. If you ever make the mistake of extending your stay in a hotel then you should demand to speak with the manager of housekeeping, right away. The manager of the hotel is useless and has severed all ties, diplomatic or otherwise, with housekeeping, long ago. The pretense of it being a single functioning hotel is just that, a pretense; or worse, a farce.

You must negotiate your peace for yourself. It will require some basic communication skills:

If anybody from your fucking team knocks on my door or calls my room while I am trying to sleep again, then I will rape, burn, and eat your family's families for a hundred generations to come. 

Do not tempt me, sir, or madam. What gender were you at birth? 

Never mind that, that is your business, and you seem to have somewhat taken the transitional task seriously. 

Look them right in the eyes while closing the door for hopefully the last time and repeat: Rape, burn, and eat.... everyone you have ever loved. 

You must emphasize that sequence of events. It works if you change the order, but invites the very same confusion that will have them knocking past your "Do Not Disturb" sign again and wanting to know why you are still in the room when the clipboard that they keep referencing in confusion seems to suggest that you should have already checked out.

The front desk of a hotel means absolutely nothing, that is only the counter where they collect the money. Their phones are not even connected to the wall. It is all a play act. The real power is contained on a piece of paper attached to a brown clipboard that wanders the hallways knocking on doors, dialing numbers, ringing buzzers.

The English language fails these interactions, always. Speak in any language you can muster no matter how broken, except English. It is helpful to be able to express anger in many languages and dialects. It is known as "unexpected lingual leapfrogging." Nothing puts the untamable domestics on their heels quite like angry gibberish from an unexpected tongue. You hit the hallway and they think you just might be praying in tongues. It's like answering the door naked, waving a fully flaming torch, black smoke rolling out towards the other guests. What they wanted to convey no longer matters in a situation like that.

Don't ever forget this advice. You will need it.

Otherwise, one day you will find yourself standing at the door to your hotel room, unpleasantly remembering something about fresh towels, room service, raping overcooked carcasses, and you'll never quite be certain why.


Señor, we have you checking out today. It is 11:45. Hotel check-out is at 11, Señor.

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If you 'aint Harley then you 'aint shit

Since being in Colorado I have joined at least one almost all-female Japanese biker gang. 

We're called "Fetish" and we ride out.

We're still working on our name. 

It was my idea, but the gang doesn't really get it.

I nearly got my ass whipped over it.

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Return to Sender

Okay, just a few random thoughts today, not my normal cohesiveness and purity of purpose:

When the boy finds something "wrong" around the apartment I just jump into an action-figure pose and and exclaim, "Batman did it!"

Next thing I know, every time something seems off the boy jumps into universal action and accusation:

Batman did it...!!!

You're god-damned fucking right he did, kid, and he'll keep doing it too, unless we raise taxes on the poor people.

It doesn't really matter what I say, to be honest. The kid thinks I'm right. People will blather on about the unexpected wisdom of children until they hear my boy proudly exclaim, Daddy's bum-bum needs medicine.

I'll look them right in the eye and say, He uses the euphemism "bum-bum" to describe my anus-hole.

Nothing breaks up a kid's birthday party quite like truth.

The other day, an aging acquaintance asked me to write a haiku for her birthday:

You are aging fast
This is not as bad as this:
You are aging last

I like it. All haiku should rhyme. It should be sharia law.

I believe that women fall in love with men they feel reasonably confident they can convert into men they don't want to be in love with.

At least that is what the beach told me, on Sunday.

They don't seem to realize they are doing this. It's just this thing they do. Blame it on nature.

Men do something similar, I think.

They believe that women will remain as they were when you fell together.


Everybody seems to fall in love with an unsustainable fantasy.

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The ELVIS

I must be slipping.... I forgot to write a post yesterday.

Just forgot. I got here this morning and asked myself, "What did I come in here for?"


Here, I'll post this as a makeup date:

Treat me like a fool, treat me mean and cruel, but love me.

If time were not a moving thing
And I could make it stay
This hour of love we share
Would always be
There'd be no coming day
To shine a morning light
And make us realize our night is over

When you walk away from me
There is no place to put my hand
Except to shade my eyes against the sun
That rises over the land
I watch you walk away
Somehow I have to let you go
Cause it's over

If you knew just how I really feel
You might return and yet
There are so many times
That people have to love and then forget
Oh there might have been a way somehow
I have to force myself to say
It's over

So I turn my back,
Turn my collar to the wind
Move along in silence
Trying not to think at all
I set my feet before me
Walk the silent street before me
Now it's over

If time were not a moving thing
And I could make it stay
This hour of love we share
Would always be
There'd be no coming day
To shine a morning light
And make us realize our night is over

It's over

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Oh, don't touch that.

If you want a laugh.

People are just silly. Silly! I should have structured my life in such a way where all I do is write letters like that one. I missed my true calling: being a defense lawyer in the topsy-turvy porn industry. 

Yesterday, even with a slight nasal cold, I decided that it was time to crack open some booty vino. I had the boy for the day and wanted to make dinner. Earlier, we had gone by a kitchen supply store and picked up a few medieval culinary devices that I still don't quite understand. Any standard American kitchen could be easily converted into a torture chamber, with a little imagination.

Salt and pepper shakers, a few cooking utensils, wine glasses, a sugar bowl, a cooking apron. While there, the guy that owned the place asked Rhys his favorite color.

Orange, says the boy.

A few moments later he comes out with an orange balloon tied to a string, filled with helium. The boy squealed with delight. The man looped the string around the boy's wrist and we were on our way.

Adventure.

We went by the grocery store and bought some veggies and chicken. We left the balloon in the car, to avoid the tears of loss.

When we got home I instructed the boy on the proper way to keep from losing a balloon, by not letting it go. We had to walk around the building to go in the door on the opposite side of the apartment for reasons that I will perhaps soon explain here. The boy did a great job at holding onto the balloon and we made it all the way into the place, with me emphasizing what will happen if he lets go of the string.

Once inside I set myself to the task of unwrapping my new utensils, washing them before use, finding the best place for them, etc.

I hear the boy excitedly screaming for my attention from the back bedroom. I dash.

I get there and I immediately realize that he has already figured out the latch mechanism on the sliding glass door, and he is standing outside pointing to the sky, ecstatic at the image of this balloon that he has just launched into infinity.

And he was right. It was great to stand there and watch it go.

I hope it doesn't kill any ducklings anywhere, or a dolphin. No alligators in California, so that's not a worry, not like it is in Florida.

Rachel came over to have dinner with us, bringing a salmon filet to complete our surf-and-fowl combo. She decided on a La Clarine Farm mourvedre, a varietal. Here is a video I produced about it. That gift of wine is already paying direct dividends. The wine was delicious, truly. Subtle. I would need to buy another bottle to do a review of it. It was one of less than 1500 bottles made, or sold. I was lucky enough to get one of them.

I don't think the wine paired all that well with the sweet and tangy barbecue sauce I was using on the chicken. Yes, barbecue sauce. What? I explained that I'm from Florida, and am now deeply involved in the California alligator preservation movement.

Asparagus, broccoli, brussel sprouts, caramelized onions with the chicken, salmon, and wine. I always list and consume my food in alphabetical order, etc.

After dinner it was time to give the boy a bath. I did the dishes - yes, I both cook and clean. While finishing, I happened upon an odd conversation emerging from the bathroom.

Mom and I have been trying to emphasize some basic life lessons to the boy. For reasons that I might not fully understand she was distributing this time-tested and reliable gem: Never trust a fart. I felt that it was perhaps a little too soon to launch this sage advice on a three year old boy, but Mom's always know best.

If a man is talking in the forest and there is no woman there to hear him, he is still very wrong.

In fairness, she washes more of his underwear, so she might be privy to some insider information, some squirt alerts. I was almost an adult by the time the full suspicion of turd tremors wisdom trickled down to me. Though in fairness, that was also the heyday of trickle-down policies in general.

Mommy was getting him ready to walk him home, so that I could get a good night's sleep and hopefully recover enough to go to the beach today.

She was trying to dry him off and get him to put on his underwear. He favors super-hero underwear, and I can't say that I entirely blame him. Every now and then it's nice to be able to factually relay to your friends that Spider-Man is crawling all over your balls. How else is the boy expected to learn these things, if not from his dad?

She offered him a fresh pair of non-branded underwear, not a Batman or Spidey in sight.

I don't want to wear those... I don't want to wear those!!!

Rachel picked up the used Flash Gordon underwear, turned them inside out, and showed him a little circular poop stain.

Oh, don't touch that, he said.

He then lifted his leg, eager to try to get it in the clean pair that she had been offering. I've never seen him get underwear on so fast. Proud and happy about it, too. A sudden and thorough change of heart.


As they were leaving by the back door, Mom stopped for a moment to remind him.

Tell Daddy thanks for dinner...

His exit: Nice for seeing you, Daddy.

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Bigfoot, the Bashful Yeti Tree Sculpture

I awoke downstairs at Rachel's house. The boy asked if I would spend the night. This was fine with me. I prefer the bed downstairs to all other beds that I've ever slept on, for all eternity. I wonder, if I get a girlfriend, would Rachel let us live down here. It is the bed that I would next like to fall in love on. I don't mean that you necessarily have to fall in love while in bed, but incompatibility there likely indicates unseen opposition elsewhere.

I hope Rachel doesn't read these posts any more. She's told me that she stopped some time ago, but one can never be too sure.

Women are... well, there's no way to end that statement decently. They are mysterious at their best. When a woman loses her mystery then it's all over. There's no way for a man's mind to recover from the shock. The best you can hope for after that is being friends, which is what we are told all successful marriages are comprised of anyway, two close friends. 

We regularly praise qualities in women that we would not permit in men. I don't mean that we would forcibly remove the qualities, but that we would not allow that man around us. 

I got hit on the other night, by a guy. It was funny. It has been some time since anything like that has happened. It is flattering, no matter what anybody tells you. You reach an age where any attention is recognized as a compliment.

Well, I guess there are some that may have wanted to beat the guy senseless for being gay, and then having their disgust at such a thing overwhelm them in a fit of sexual violence. It's odd, that repulsion would cause such close physical contact. One must wonder at the origins of such feelings.

A friend told me about a shirt he saw, years ago:

Homophobia is Gay

Few things make me pleased quite as much as truth distilled to its essential components. 

I must create some adventure for myself and the boy today. I had considered the beach, but now it seems too ambitious. There are many things that I still need to buy for the new apartment, but the funds are unavailable. My adventures in investing have not quite worked out as I had planned. Regular market fluctuations, combined with foolish speculative endeavors have emptied my once overflowing portfolio.

I believed deep in my pockets that stock in Sky Mall would be a solid investment. 

The inimitable H.L. Mencken once wrote, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." I suppose he had never seen Sky Mall magazine.

Well, just look at this minor coincidence.

So, all my money's gone now. It's beginning to look like early retirement for me. It's lucky that my buddy shipped me those wines, as that represents the startup capital for my latest investment. I'm going to fill my apartment with fine wines and then just wait to see what happens. 

If I can last ten months then some of those bottles will have matured in age and value. 

Who will be laughing then.

Nobody saw Sky Mall's problems coming:

If you've never personally spotted Bigfoot, perhaps it's just because he's been hiding behind the nearest tree! Our legendary yeti makes a surprise entrance in your yard as a highly detailed, quality designer resin sculpt designed to allow him to peek around your garden trees. Painstakingly hand-painted to make passers-by look twice, our believe-it-or-not sculpt is available only at Design Toscano! 

Each approx. 15"W x 12"D x 15"H. (8 lbs.)

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domainLA wines

A box arrived at work for me yesterday. A large box, filled with many exotic wines. I have a true and good friend out there in the world. It's how you know that somebody understands you.

He just really "gets" me.

The labels are all wonderful and mysteriously suggestive concerning the bottle's contents. I will be a poet by the time that I am through. In wine there is truth, but one must also fight past the dragons to clutch any of it.

All friends should be like him. I could set them up on a shipping schedule, etc.

My buddy and I have known each other for many years, close to 40 now. Wow, that stings, the very thought of it. We met in 3rd grade. We were both in an advanced learning class, because teachers recognized that there was something wrong with us.

His mother used to carpool us to school. She had the Big Mac bumper sticker on the car: Twoallbeefpattyspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun.

I remember hearing Neil Young's "Southern Man" for the first time in that car.

He relayed a story of me being "distraught" at the death of Randy Rhoads. A small plane mishap involving a coked-out pilot and trying to "buzz" the tour bus at ultra low altitudes. A few feet too low, anyway. That happened not far from where we lived. I must have just been in a dramatic mood, as I never gave a shit about Ozzy Osbourne, I do not believe.

Black Sabbath were some freaky Christians. They must have been fun to have a seance with.

He brought Queen's "News of the World" to school one day and I borrowed it, took it home and made a cassette tape of it. It was known as "pirating."

Listening to that album now I struggle with ever having liked it. It's as if Andrew Lloyd Webber decided to start smoking speed during a very average acid comedown.

The seventies were weird, man. As a child I loved very dramatic music. Music that I now find unlistenable.

Like this:

That Freddie Mercury sure was a character. He got all dressed up for the video.


My life has recovered marginally since taking the Facebook app off of my phone. My driving, however, has improved tremendously.


I feel unwell today. I drank a bottle of red wine when I got home last night and it must have agreed with me. I sat up much later than normal and spewed nonsense into the celestial aether.

I have the boy this weekend, so we will go and have many adventures. I may write about them here.

Then, I am off to the Colorado mountains to ski and watch the Super Bowl, maybe drink some wine.

I may write about that also, as the whims pull me.

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White face against the wall

Aye, ay, ay , ay, aye....

With face against the wall

Weeping
with face against the wall
the city's dying down

Weeping
and there's nothing left
than to die perhaps
Where are you?

Dreaming
with face against the wall
the city's burning down

Dreaming
without a breath
I want to love you
I want to love you

Praying
with face against the wall
the city's sinking down

Praying
Mother Mary
Mother Mary
Mother Mary

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Tolle parvis tyrannorum

Six hours of glorious uninterrupted sleep. It is rare for me, and I do not take it lightly. Or, perhaps I do. That's maybe how it happens. I don't know the mystery to sleeping well. Being able to quiet the voice in your head has something to do with it, though inner-quiet does not always bring peace, nor sleep.

 Enough about my sleeping struggles. 

Today, I will go into the city and function in a slightly different capacity, an educational one. It is good to step outside of yourself occasionally, to remind that you are not only the thing that you do every day.

CS has been commenting lately on the uselessness of inactivity, particularly for one who relays their life in a daily way. Uneventful repetition gives rise to routine writing. For some time now I have not been happy with my posts here, and yet I'm not sure how to change any of it.

There was one post about cops that people seemed to like. Perhaps all those recent page views were from the Sonoma County Police Department.

Word gets out: Boys, get your boots on. We've got an arrest resistor. 

Who knows.

That people regularly say things like, Not all cops are bad, you know.... shouldn't require a response.

If you must, just say, Yeah, not every single one of them. That's probably accurate.

I could maybe use an old-fashioned southern shit-kicking soon, just to get my mind right. Nothing clarifies the moment like a sudden, unexpected crack to the eye socket, or stomach. In an instant, one immediately knows what they want and what they do not want.

It's similar to that moment in meditation in which things become suddenly and unexpectedly clear. Any previous chaos of emotion dissipates and turns towards something else. If you're lucky - just after that moment - when your mind has been granted a moment of lucidity they will give you a choice: more, followed by a night in jail, or immediate compliance to their will, which usually involves you walking away, quietly.

I've tried it both ways and have learned that the latter option also has its charms.

"Honor, duty, and sacrifice" mean nothing. Less than nothing.

Away with petty tyrants.


I just want the world to be a better place. More taxes should probably cover it.

Sonoma was just given a decommissioned B-52.

It has been retrofitted to drop parking tickets across the entire county.

Nobody knows how to fly it yet, though. They're asking everybody to just come down the the airstrip and pick up their tickets up there. They invite the kids and mothers to sit in the cockpit and marvel at the new, sudden safety of the community.

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Color TV Swimming Pool Air Conditioned Room Phones

(found pic)

The boy woke up around 2am, which means I also woke up around 2am. He, of course, came and got in bed with me and then promptly fell back asleep. Things did not unfold in quite the same way for yours patchouli.

The boy is only 40" but he finds a way of occupying the entire bed. He's a UFC napper.

I sit here listening to the Grateful Dead, for reasons that are too simple to go into.

I am looking at multi-connection flights all over Central and South America, and then back again. It is impossible, of course, but I am looking anyway. There is a bachelor party and then a wedding. Certainly there must come an age in which one is too old for bachelor parties, no? 

I would say 45-ish, give or take a year or two.

A stripper could easily break my hip. A hooker might be my eternal undoing, my end. 

Then, there are the costs to consider. Who knows how much they charge to rid a man of the curling wretchedness these days.

So, I started looking at flights just for the wedding, but my mind was scratching at itself with a mild case of imaginary fleas, just a touch of the mange.

I wondered inside my heart... how inappropriate would it be to just go to the bachelor party?

No, of course that would not work. If I were to choose then it would be the wedding and not the other. Why do I feel so flat and suddenly empty. Finances must make me hungry. 

Money is a growling in the caverns of the mind, haunting faraway places. It is the exotic curse which few wish away. 

The Buddhists tell us not to want. That sounds nice and pleasing, precisely what I need.

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New Moon on Tuesday

If a full moon is "full" then a new moon must be empty, anything between: incomplete. The moon is becoming new as I write this. I am listening to Duran Duran on YouTube. Just one song, nothing after that, I swear. I do not wish to appear gluttonous when it comes to such things. 

Also, I have never cared for the song much. It was not among their best.

Fuck the Fab Five. 

Just kidding, those links are my top four, for today. I really don't care for New Moon on Monday, but felt a responsibility to link it. Okay, this one makes five.

What? Surprised that I'm a Duran Duran fan? I've always been much more a fan of Japan, the band that invented Duran Duran, and the band that was most invented by David Bowie.

That's your pop music recess for the day.

Heterosexuality took a pretty serious beating in the 80's. It has never quite recovered. The idea that there is something very wrong with men is an attitude that appears to have survived and flourished. It is unquestioned now, entered the realm of basic fact. The eighties caused it all. Go back and look, you'll see. Just watch the videos linked above. The 80's was David Bowie's bisexual masterpiece. 

It was a great time to seem connected to obscurity. Too bad it couldn't last. There was simply no way to successfully merge Aerobics and Jazzercise. Everybody just gave up.

Speaking of being gay, I made lasagna last night. I don't mean to suggest that I browned meat and laid it out with strips of pasta and red sauce and then baked it, but I did peel back the cellophane and put it in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.  It gave me terrible indigestion. Late last night, I finally couldn't take it any longer and had to get up and make an Alka-Seltzer. I think I even washed down a Zantac with it.

Kids, these are all the product-terms of early retirement. Avoid anybody that uses the word "seltzer," in private or in public, they are either old or desperately trying to appear anachronistically so. Perhaps I'll explain what these terms are in a later post, though maybe not the one in which I've promised to explain what an erection is. 

That might represent a rising conflict of interest.

That's just one way in which you can know that you have purchased some quality food, when the premonition of indigestion increasingly accompanies every bite. I wanted to have a glass of red wine with my dinner but was afraid to. Me, afraid of red wine. That is a culinary feat.

All night I dreamed of being at a wedding. It was horrible.

A friend has said that he will be sending me a case of wines. He will seek my opinions on them. I requested nine reds and three whites. It is nice to have some chilled whites for the ladies and the gays. You see, I am not the brute that I make myself out to be. 

Again, it was just the 80's. I swear.

I have run out of hard drive space, so I bought a new 4 TB drive. I always "zero" a drive before actually using it, which usually takes a couple hours. This one has been going since yesterday afternoon and it still has 22 hours to go. 

While I was sitting here it dropped to 21 hours. My prediction: that number will continue to decrease. 

I have been sitting here listening to Japan since the beginning of the post. What an underrated band, truly. 

All five of their albums were released in a three year period. They were doing 80's pop in the 70's. Quiet Life was 1979... Mick Karn is a heroic fretless bass player. There is nobody else like him, really. If you pretend to be a fan of the music of this time and have never heard the album Dali's Car then email me privately and I'll berate you publicly.

I know I'll take some heat from some of my old anarchist friends for such unashamed musical confessions. But what is the point of growing old if you can't sit out on your porch with lasagna indigestion, yelling at kids about the superiority of a previous time.

Holy SHIT... I just did a wikipedia search for Patrick Nagel, and... I could not make this shit up: he died in a tragic "Aerobathon" mishap. 

In the future, everyone will exercise for ~15 minutes.

If I had more time I would go back and re-write this entire piece around that little factual gem. What strikes me as being most comical in the imaginary telling of his death is just how little wikipedia has to say about his art. 

Could anything reflect the vacuity of the times more fully? The pretense that "pop" had genuine significance and meaning... the victory of industry over inspiration as its message. Part of its sinister nature is that it claims both the zenith and the nadir of the effect of its own intentions.

At the time there seemed no way to escape the ethos of its surface, its wide pastiche reach. Then, it all just disappeared... leaving us with Sophia Coppola's films to explain to us what we all had experienced, or somehow missed out on.

.

How and why to discuss racism with poor people

Racism is on the run, we're told. 

I have nothing much to say this afternoon, have been working myself out of my own mind, and skin. 

I am leaning on labor, for security. I would not advise it, though I know many that do, abuse it. The one thing you never want to do when you need things is to need things.

Desperation is exponential, money always escapes.

Just act cool, always, though not as if there are cops behind the car.

Chill out, don't CHILL OUT.


Act as if the cops are just smilingly trying to clear the path so that your driver can back out onto the boulevard, to pull away.


Drive a hearse, or a limo, or a cruiser, everywhere you go.

Each commands its own respect.

Hog Of The Forsaken

My books made their way out of the boxes and onto the shelves. The records are still boxed up, in the closets. Yesterday, a friend stopped by and asked if I would set up turntables. I hadn't thought about it, but maybe. It would only make me regret having given away so many of my records. I would likely become bored of dj'ing, though. Could be fun for a while. Who knows. 

I could make a mix tape.

I could also set up my studio gear. That seems more satisfying, though I haven't made music in years. Everything requires space that you must be willing to sacrifice. The surrendering that becomes increasingly difficult as you get older. Aging is as much about space as it is about time. 

In the nineties, when I was in my twenties, most of my friends had entire rooms in their Florida homes dedicated to listening to music and consuming ecstasy. Seems so improbable now.

Are there still pockets of kids out there somewhere, holing up in rooms together, getting loved up.

I wonder. I'm sure there must be. I hope so. It seems inconceivable that I would not know about it, and be invited, but it must be true.

Nobody wants me doing drugs any more. I've taken an informal poll and the results were unanimous. I'm not sure what happened. 

Yes I am. 

Each respondent gave specific anecdotal support for their vote of no confidence. 

Jesus, I'm sitting here listening to Dolly Parton. Why did I just invoke Jesus? He knows what I'm listening to. He is the great Spotify in the sky.

I love country music, but it is some sappy stuff. The seventies were weird, man.

I'd like to do a country/bluegrass radio program. 

I may have missed my true calling.

Speaking of, the boy will be up soon, then it's bacon time...

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Radical Price Restructuring

(The Two-Hearted Space Capsules)

I don't like waking up. It doesn't feel as nice as it used to. I know why. We all know why. I can't seem to let it go. Trifling wretchedness has long been my preferred subject.

Waking up with somebody in whom you are in love is the best way to live, if you can sustain it. Morning sex is healthy, we're told, but it is other things, also.

I've been looking at photo-gear sales sites again... I see a new prime lens in my future. My old lens, while great on a crop-framed camera, has too much vignetting for me now. It is absurd, my willingness to spend nearly $500 to get a slight improvement in image quality at wide-open apertures. I rarely like to shoot stopped-down past f2.0, or maybe f2.8, where most optical aberrations improve dramatically.

That's what a hobby is all about. It distracts us from death, decay.

I am planning a trip in the early summer. Bellingham, WA. Also, NYC a month before that, in spring. There is Greek Easter and a baptism to attend. I will go and express my reverence for ritual. Also, I have not had lamb the way that it is intended in far too long. I had hoped to go to Florida this month, but coordinating the elderly towards a cohesive travel plan became far too great a task.

I finally got the newish Blonde Redhead album.... Wow, do I miss weekends lying around listening to music like that. 

That, and Samaris. 

Perhaps instead of a new lens... a bagful of powdered ecstasy should be my sole dream and vision. Is that stuff still illegal. Good gods, I hope not. Have we learned nothing at all? I would not advocate nor advertise illicit behavior here, of course, but...

Burning Man pre-sale tickets go on sale soon for the low-low price of $800. Regular tickets will go on sale some time later, for $390, if there are any left. That should resolve any lingering questions about the nature of that organization. They have acted precisely as any other religion does. If you want a guaranteed spot on the playa then there are indulgences to be paid. Eternal infrastructure is not cheap, you see.

Ah well, it was fun while it blasted. I am content that I went last year. It was all well worth it. One must be careful though, its defenders are radical fanatics, and I'll probably go again this year, anyway... I need to curb my critiques. 

Nobody likes the sweaty, fat, white guy that doesn't want to be there, gibbering about past personal preferences and the ever increasing costs of participation.

One must always possess a sense of humor about such things. Without amusement gleaned from absurdity there remains only the hum of nothingness, and the sound of some nuisance distractedly complaining in the distance. 

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Little Leagues

Those pork sandwiches ended up costing me about $60 each, in the end.

Since I've moved in to the new apartment I have had slight issues with frost in the cooling section of refrigerator section. The freezer portion was getting too cold. I kept turning the temperature down, until I finally decided to turn it down as low as it would go.

They have changed how these knobs work. In the 70's, when the world was far more down with itself, these knobs only went from Cold to Coldest. They did not go from Off to Coldest.

That would be stupid and invite disaster.

That is the subject of today's post: disaster.

Sometime in the middle of the night on late Tuesday... I turned my refrigerator off and then drove in to the city that next morning. When I came home I opened the door to the fridge, armed with a happy fork, took 3 or 4 forkfuls of pork, and then ate them.

Something didn't seem right. There was water where it needn't be, shouldn't be. I opened the freezer and immediately noticed that something terrible had happened. It was well above the freezing point of water.

I checked again. I turned the knob slightly clockwise and the beast, the rectangular cuboid, sprang to its monstrous food preserving self. 

Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT, FUCK...!!!! 

Never trust a hexahedron! 

How many times have I warned others of this exact same thing.

I thought that it would be best to eat the perishables, right away. Ice cream!

I dove into a chocolate soup. I began to wonder if that was bad for me.

Then, it hit me: Pork. Oh, fuck. 

Blessed by the gods. Pork, dear pork... why have you betrayed me. Of all the meats; many were called, but you were chosen.

I started to assess the damage, though I didn't have much time or stomach for it. I had to go pick up Rhys. Then, I became distracted with a few other things, before I knew it.... I realized that I would have to throw a lot of food out. All of it!, or so I thought at first. Then I calmed down and realized that the fancy mustards I purchased might survive, maybe even the bagels and bread, and a few other things. Suddenly, I was on top again. I was as a Fox News correspondent, a smiling denier of warming.

Why did I have potato chips in the refrigerator? That's not needed. They could be spared this market massacre. Science wins.

I didn't have time to create a new shopping list. Like a fool, I thought that I would just naturally know what needed to be replaced. My domesticity precedes itself.

I went and picked up Rhys.

Already things were getting fuzzy for me. It had only been 30 minutes since I discovered the carnage. The timeline had yet to crystallize. 

Eggs? They seemed pretty self-contained, impervious to heat. Just look at what we do to those near-anal treasures. Certainly they would be safe, right? Eggs have survived all of history. They're Egyptian, I think. I'm sure of it.

Certain rumors have it that every egg contains a pyramid that acts as a floating compass to miniature aliens. Eggs vibrate unpleasantly if you bring them near Fukushima, etc.

No: Butter safe then sorry.

I was already remorseful, sick with expense. There was no point in attacking a warm household appliance with loud, damning truisms. They would do no good. Cliches are exclusively for poor people, or the rich when at Burning Man.

I pictured the look on Rachel's face when she met me at the hospital.... if I had fed our child a bad egg, or a nice room-temperature pork sandwich, with slushy-slaw.

Does Rhys even eat pulled pork?  There is so much I still have to learn, and then teach back to him. I wonder at what age he will first try Sriracha sauce. Will it be with me, and should I keep that secret from mommy? Probably. 

We'll ever know, this site prevents me from holding many secrets. 

Next:

I decided that we should survey the full extent of damage before contacting FEMA. I didn't wish to appear as a Bush-baby here.

We went back to the house. I was starting to feel as if I was having an anxiety attack.

So much effort has gone in on my part to make something work, to feel natural - for Rhys to accept that this will be his new second home, also. It takes very little for all of that to feel as if it has somehow become completely unravelled. 

Groceries did it. The current threshold for my parental madness is ~$300

We came back. I poured out all of the milk, the half-and-half, even tossed the eggs without thrusting them angrily into the garbage can - as if against the side of a house of a long-time teenage foe.

There was other stuff. 

Lot, and Lot's wife.

Rhys watched it all. I did it quickly, assuring him the entire time that this is what good parents do, and that we would soon go to the grocery store and "fix everything..."

The fridge had been back on for about half an hour, or so. Everything seemed to represent wet decay, supermarket waste. It all reminded me of every day in the life I lived in Florida.

I had bought all of the things that I knew the boy would love: waffles for breakfast, string cheese snacks, chicken fingers, yogurt, chocolate pudding for desert. 

All of it, ruined.

I turned up the oddly inverted "cold dial," closed the door, went to the bedroom to get ready to run over with Rhys to a friend's house, planning on going to the grocery store late that night.

I did not yell. I barely raised my voice. I only closed the fridge door and told him that we can't open that any more until it was cold in there again. 

I raised my voice. I didn't yell.

I emphasized. It is called, "motivational speaking."

He went to play in the other room. We had brought many toys. He is a healthy kid that runs around.

I then flattened all of the useless boxes and prepared myself to just "dad-up" and buy all new groceries. I felt something akin to an anxiety attack coming on; a tightness around my upper chest and neck, as if the muscles that connect my arms and shoulders had suddenly shortened, become less pliable, and wished me self-harm.

As I readied myself to bring the boxes out, and then also the boy out to the car, I noticed that he was in his new bedroom on his knees, playing with the nightlight. Knowing his fascination with all things electric, I questioned the safety plugs that I had just put in all of the outlets, to prevent little fingers.

I came closer to make sure he wasn't pulling them out of the wall. I set down all that was in my arms. I moved closer and noticed something much more, the little boy was weeping.

Is there just no possible way to not fuck up, nor fuck up the life of another.

Triple Negative: a base hit that puts you on third, where there's lots of cheering or something like it - the noise is deafening - but you must also be on your toes, because there are two outs in the unlucky bottom of the ninth, and you had better know when not to sprint.

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Scared Bosphorus

I think that I finally have my life figured out. I go to sleep anytime between finishing work through around 8pm on most days and sleep until sometime before midnight. Then, I wake up and I am entirely alone for hours. Some nights I will fall back asleep for a secondary session in the unconscious for (hopefully) three more hours, though usually less. There is no isolation like that of the solitary night. My life is a secret to itself, an uninvited mystery.

I do not recommend it as a way to be.

That is why I have pounds and pounds of pulled pork in my refrigerator, enough to feed ten people. I have eaten two sandwiches and have already bored of it. Soon, I will just wake up and prepare myself a truly nice dinner. A midnight brunch, of sorts. When you are alone... It's quite okay for a straight man to prepare brunch for himself.

Nobody will ever know, etc.

Speaking of... I lied. It occurred to me that I have made dinner for other people before. I have grilled many chickens and steaks, baked vegetables; Brussels sprouts and asparagus with olive oil. I vaguely remember making Swedish meatballs and noodles once, also. Or, I might have just bought them at Ikea and eaten them there in the cafeteria. I don't recall all of the details, except that the lingonberry jam was mildly appetizing. I had forgotten that not long ago I was a different man.

I'm not as much of a culinary innocent as I once pretended to be. I have begun duplicitousness as a form of self-entertainment.

Begun... now that is funny. Persona is an ongoing falsehood that becomes something else, similar to truth; composed of sincerity, bereft of fact.

Within the next few months my circadian patterns will be synchronized with that of the proud Eastern Europeans. My spirit and body will live in different time zones, like the two halves of Budapest, though they will hardly speak of it. I will develop some strange melatonin deficiency. My dreams might be pillaged by the Visigoths, or perhaps the Mongols. A barbaric sacking, at any rate. 

The papal seat will move to Constantinople, by way of Ravenna.

It has been too long since I have felt that I am flying opium carpets amidst the spires of Istanbul, hookah-powered and prayering wildly towards the Sultanahmet Cami in crescent moonlight; sickle setting stars, enjoying the honeymoon suite during the entire month of Ramada Inn.

Because it pleases I, the Sultan.

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Pulled Pork

I challenge anybody that reads here to challenge me on this simple fact: I have never prepared a cooked meal, either for myself or for anybody else. Ever.

There are a handful of ex-girlfriends here on Facebook, an ex-other or so, a lifetime of friends, etc. None of them are capable of relaying a story about me cooking them dinner, neither has anybody seen me cook one for myself.

I've made sandwiches, boiled eggs, heated cans of soup, etc. I used to heat pre-made spaghetti sauce with boiled pasta. That's probably the closest I've ever come to cooking a meal.

That all changed last night. I made 8-10 servings of pulled pork barbecue in a Crock Pot, which is a sort of electric/ceramic slow cooker that made its way over from the Old World. Lithuania, I think.

That's the whole story.

The boy and I will have pork sandwiches for a week, unless I decide to eat the entire thing right now, which I have been thinking about doing since it finished its six hour cook-time around midnight. The entire apartment smells of warm animal fats. Four pounds of slow cooked pork, some catsup, molasses, sriracha sauce, brown sugar, a bunch of other stuff, all purchased recently at the local market, then stirred together in a glass bowl.

Each sandwich only cost me about $25.

In fairness, I do have quite a few ingredients left over, awaiting the arrival of the future. The cost of each sandwich will drop dramatically the next few times I do this. I can probably offer them for sale, somewhere around $30 each.

No, I just had a sandwich and while I was eating the thing, with some sort of cabbage slaw that I bought with the other ingredients, it occurred to me that I have still not made myself a meal. I have simply expanded on my rather extensive sandwich knowledge.

Soon.

What I've done is not far from a stew. Maybe that should be my next effort. $25 a bowl, maybe $30.

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Duck Soup!

I spent yesterday morning with the boy. We went over to Napa Walmart to buy some things for the new apartment. Yes, Walmart. I had been give a gift card and figured I might as well use it. I prefer Target, because I'm both a liberal and a snob, but what can one do... throw money away merely because you're an elitist with exaggerated respect for social classes? 

A broom is a broom, I self-surmised.

Also, I thought that it would be an adventure for the boy and I. It was. We found him a Spider-Man ball that he adores, and we each had one small piece of chocolate unwrapped at the checkout counter.

I did not buy all of the things that I need. I have tried to only purchase the things that will be of immediate use to me. 

I have tile floors, so a Swiffer was needed first, but then I quickly realized how inadequate it is with a child around. I needed a broom with a pan to feel complete.

On the way home I got a text from my buddy, Matt, the father of Rhys' buddy, Jordan. Matt and I agreed to meet at the town square where we would let the boys play for a bit.

When Rhys was getting out of the car he seemed unusually excited to go see the ducks. He practically ran towards their pond. I normally would have grabbed my play camera, but he left me too little time. I almost had to run after him. We hit the pond at the same time. 

He gravitates towards this one spot of the pond where there is no rock perimeter and he can stand closer to the water. As we walked around and hit that spot he turned to approach the water more closely. He stood on a rock that I immediately noticed was loose and I said, "I would prefer that you not stand on that..." as I reached out towards him. But it was all too late. A single second later and I could have stopped it, but no. He went face first into icy, nasty, dirty, shit-filled, disease-ridden duck water.

I dove to the ground to retrieve him, grabbing him up by the back of his pants, which were not even visible at the time as he had completely submerged into darkness.

A 225 pound man making sudden movements towards concrete is not advised. I bruised my left knee and sent that rock that he had been standing on into the water. I grabbed him by the back of his pants and had him out of the water almost as quickly as he went in, but it was too late, he was soaked from head to toe; freezing, crying, and stinky wet.

I carried him back to the car and tried to get all of his clothes off as quickly as I could. There was a dry shirt and pants there, luckily. His wails and tears were ceaseless. Just the small amount of water that ended up on me by holding him had soaked through my two shirts and even I was getting cold. He was shivering with anguish, remorse, and fear.

I rushed him home to mommy's house as that was the word he kept repeating through his tears. 

Mommy, mommy, mommy...

There, we put him in a nice, warm bath where he recovered quickly. I stunk of duck shit, washing my arms all the way up to the shoulders did not change that. It was on my pants also.

For me, it took more than just a bath to recover. I went with a friend to a steakhouse here in town that I just found out about yesterday and had martinis and a New York Strip.

Yes, that is the magic cure for duck waste-water: two martinis and a New York Strip.

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Song of Songs

(The fighter, Muhammad by Ali Keeyonardo)

Even my most enthusiastic supporters were reluctant to show advocacy for my exploration in Bat-Boner yesterday. I have accomplished something, though I'm not quite sure what. A puerile victory, or perhaps a personal tie, a record-breaker with something unnamed. A draw in the darkness.

I lost the coin toss, so I had to make it up in goals.

I have bored of writing daily, I think. Though I feel empty if I don't do it, incomplete. It is a form of compulsion. I am certain of it. It can be cathartic, but it often ends up being merely the result of unspoken urge, habit. It no longer gives me the sensation that it once did, unless I take some time away from it and then go back. I must seem paralyzed, to an onlooker, never able to surprise myself with my own movements.

I suppose that I am not meant to complain about those feelings, here. What if it makes somebody else feel bad for reading this. That is not my intention, at all.

Jesus. I need Jesus, or Moses, or maybe a floating Noah. Unnamed Lot's wife, before the mishap, just at the moment of her curiosity, then for a few brief moments before salt. Women should really never look back at the burning valley of Sodom. It is pillared.

Ezekiel was a colorful character. Why aren't we encouraged to worship the prophets, especially the mute ones. Wasn't Mohammad a prophet? I have a drawing I did of him lying around here somewhere. Just a little sketch, to capture all moments, forever.

Let's if you can find it there in my pockets, my Muslimah.


That's my problem with writing, I think. It's that I no longer believe very much of what I write. For a few months now, maybe years, I have fluctuated back and forth between things I care about and things I don't; things I believe and things that I forget.

Perhaps I should start writing children's poetry like old what's his name. I can't think of who I am trying to think of. James Baldwin? No, somebody else. CS, who did you say that I would soon become?


A piece of advice for my music loving friends: Do not awake in the middle of the night and begin to read about Nick Drake's final years. That's what I did, early this morning. I put on Bryter Later because it happened to be queued up in my iTunes library. The pleasure of listening gave way to the sinister itch of curiosity. Is anything more devious than wonder?

Now, I'm ponderous, melancholic. I wish to augment this feeling, or somehow remove myself from it. It has taken few of my years to realize that wish is (mostly) all that drugs and alcohol do. I read it long ago in my first pamphlet. It was how my parents spoke to me, though brochures for a hopeful, better life.

Add To or Remove From. That is my sole wisdom, my sinister logic. Anybody that wishes to be more present, and in the moment, is... well, doomed to the present tense.

No, I kid, drugs, and sometimes even alcohol, do allow you to live in the moment more fully, youngsters.

Carpe Dilaudid, when you can.



I don't remember all that much about Ezekiel. Well, just listen to me, now... I never even really met the guy! I only recall that he struck me as quite crazy, possessing a stern and inflexible disposition, like so many Old Desert Testamenters.

I had the oddest impulse to add the word "parfait" to that last paragraph and I have no idea why. Now that, true believers, is the source of all prophecy: received wisdom.

Don't question it if it's absurd, beneficial, or directly from God; only question it if may be messaging from the dark one, inviting you away from the path. You must ask your heart. That's what I do.

That is His wish and His command: Listen to the leaves, but don't fuck it up. When the spirit speaks, you had better listen, and then learn how to rake, bubba.

Many are culled, eschew the chosen.


And that, souls, is your Sunday School lesson. Take it home and ponder it, or read it at work on Monday, like a good, troubled Nick Drake verse.

Trifles are the new culinary joy.


I would not necessarily say that Nick Drake's music is suicidal, though it can be difficult to separate that desperate knowledge from the unique sadness and power of his singing. His gifts are of an otherworldly nature, and you all must certainly know how I detest such descriptions. Yet, here we are.

Bryter Later is one of his more hopeful albums; contained within it are the hopeful, romantic seeds of doom. An ecstatic Greek tragedy; the saddest chorus that never was. Waves of certainty and strength, nearly apologizing for ever telling you a story, vulnerable from absolute necessity.

Some claim that he died a virgin, old St. Nick. His sister has made the claim, in Rolling Stone, or somewhere.

Is there anything more disgraceful than that? To have your sister claiming you could never pull a bird, after your self-demise. She, with no discernible talents, save what the music media offers as recompense for the near obscurity of a life lived in accidental proximity to genius.

What a bitch, a model for Lot.



Song of Songs is the only book of the bible that I can stomach, anymore, which I don't bother with often. I promise.

It has Canticles.

If you've never read it then I suggest that you do, for the impulses briefly sketched out here, fighters of ink pen.

So much went wrong there, elsewhere.

SoS could be seen as a retelling of the myth of Eve, without all the denouncing of feminine mystique, mystery, and danger. I don't know, maybe things just end poorly. As with most biblical erotica, I only read the first few minutes and then turn it off, ready for sleep, or to focus on my wives.

I do not wish to appear gluttonous in the face of open sensuality.

Or, is that how we are truly meant to be. The prophets are very quiet when it comes to nothing.



Well, Bryter Later is complete. I am on to Pink Moon.

If my son were not sleeping here tonight then I would have my guitar out, pretending the unlit center of my living room was a mystery campfire. I would play along around it, just happy to be camping somewhere under the stars.


I'll be weeping before sunrise, Jeff Buckley by noon. Elliot Smith for dinner.


In the evening, as it arrives, we each canoe across the lake.

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