6/30/06

Dear Diary,

I totally talked to Mike today in the hall! I said Hi and he like totally waved and stuff. OMG, He's SO CUTE!!! Missy totally tried to convince me that Danny is into me, but I totally know that she's trying to trick me. Missy is a cow! Shelly totally agrees, but if I told her I thought so, she'd run and tell Missy that witch.

Next week I have a big Social Studies test. Wish me luck diary, I need it!

I'm totally giving Diana the silent treatment because she's a witch. She asked me if somethings wrong and I totally told her no, but then walked away. I'll show her for totally giving me the silent treatment.

I told my mom that I totally need those earrings I was telling you about, that they would be totally awesome with my outfit, but mom was like - there's a difference between want and need Nikki. She's such a bitch. She's totally forgotten what it's like to be in junior high. I can't wait till I can leave this house and I'll show her, and she'll be all like jealous cause I'm popular and dress good and stuff. And maybe I'd die in a bad car wreck (with Missy and Shelly - wouldn't that be awesome!) and I'd be a ghost at my funeral and mom would be all upset because she didn't buy me stuff. Natalie would be thrilled cause she could finally get her hands on my CDs and stuff.

Missy and me went saw the new X-Men movie because Mike and Christopher totally said they were gonna go - I heard them talking about it in front of the school, but they weren't there and the movie was dumb. A bunch of ugly people fought and stuff - whatever! I was totally into seeing the Lindsay Lohan movie where she trades luck with that cute guy, but there's no way we were going to run into the boys at that one.

I gotta go diary. I think next week I'm going to only drink Diet Coke.
Love,
Nikki

Frustration Street

I'm feeling a little frustrated. I can't necessarily explain why, I don't necessarily want to, but knowing the frustration is there might save me from bitch slapping someone who probably only deserved a good sardonic stare.

It sort of feels like it's in the air, this frustration, like there's an angry red haze blowing in from the horizon. It may just be the circulated air here at work - 'cause frankly it's where I feel it most. I'm going to be honest with you all, or as honest as one can be semi-anonymously posting to an unknown number of readers on a website, I'm fucking tired of entertaining my anger. And I'm really fucking tired of entertaining other people's anger.

Yet, feel the anger in those words, taste the burn.

This seething sort of uncomfortable feeling makes me want to go to ridiculous ends to break it. I want to roll a bowling ball down the middle a pretty major street. I want to write an entire fake diary for a fake person and leave it for someone to find. I want to cover my head in modeling clay and sculpt a new face. I want to ride a llama, braying and spitting, into a Wallmart, all the while singing the entirety of T. Rex's Slider album.

But what I really want to do. Really? I want to go home, I want to get a bottle of rye and a 2 liter of soda, I want to order a pizza, I want to rent awful shark movies and watch every god damn one of 'em. Movies like Deep Blue Sea and Shark Attack 1-3 (Shark Attack 3:Megalodon - Could this be shitty movie nirvana? It very well could be).

I want to wallow in something.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Hit Liquor by Shudder To Think

The Yellow Lily Of SoDo

So I was walking home from work last night, and somewhere near Qwest Field I thought of a great topic for today's blog. Jot it down on something, said the rational and logical voice that man I'm so good at ignoring. And ignore it I did. I'll remember it, the care free and live for today voice said. I even gave myself small mental cues to remember it.

So on the way in today I thought to myself, "Hey, remember that great idea you had?" Nope, no idea. I tried raking through the mess up there, but eventually just gave up and wrapped myself in the sweet sound of The Wrens.

For some reason, my mind wants me to believe that it has something to do with the Pixies album Trompe Le Monde.

I know this about myself, that I'm forgetful, that if I don't write down ideas I will forget them. I tell myself that I will forget and still do not write it down. I think that it's somehow connected to the addictive side of my mind. It's the same rational logical voice that I ignore that says, "You cannot just have one cigarette and stop", or "you cannot go back and just do one more trick as a male prostitute.”

I got close to work and tried once again, in vain, to remember the idea. I thought about things I had done last night that I could talk about. Sweating? Reading in the back alley so that sweat would evaporate? Watching Sunset Boulevard on the laptop while Beth was watching Six Feet Under in the living room as I don't want to get hooked into watching another television series?

I sat down on this little concrete bench that is across from the building. I sit there nearly every morning in an attempt to cool down from the walk in. The bench is surrounded by landscaping grasses - this is not like your ghetto grass that just grows anywhere, this is specialty grass that you pay for. The grass is really tall right now, as tall as my head when I'm sitting, and sort of hides the bench.

What I saw today for the first time, as if it had just come up this morning, was a bright yellow lily growing in the middle of all that ornamental grass. I sort of did a double take, wondering if it was really there. As I said, I had never seen the flower before and it seemed hard to believe that it would spring up overnight. And it was this crazy yellow! I've never seen a lily this color before and it was literally breath taking.

I sat there for another minute, The Wrens still playing, just staring at this flower that seemed so mysterious somehow. It felt like a special little something for me, a gift for looking in the right direction. That poor abused and neglected rational and logical voice let me know that sometimes it really is just the little things in life.

So I'm writing it down...

The Pros And Cons Of Summertime

I don't want to get into a huge thing about the weather, but it's getting into summer mode here. While it's not as hot here as in other places that I've lived, our apartment for some reason collects the heat it hides in the winter and throws it out in celebration of the summer sun. So, after much sweating and little sleeping, I'm a tad out of sorts today.

I saw my dad this weekend. We ate at a restaurant on the water and the view was so much like looking out on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay that it was messing with my mind a little bit. I'm glad to see my dad take it a little easier as he gets older, see him willing to share his sense of humor a little more. But I'm more than a little bemused by his call for my dedication to a dream of his that he can't even commit to.

Biff, sorry for the fight. Thank you for the idea of getting into the lake, that felt good.

Mandy and Jason, thank you for the dinner and laughs, sorry about the bugs.

Now... The Miami Vice movie, was there that great a desire for this to happen? Seriously, was there a chorus of voices screaming into the ether for this crappy 80's television show to be reborn in the form of a film, the show that almost single-handedly brought pastels and rolled up sleeves on jackets into fashion? Have people not learned by this point that films based on television shows are pretty much guaranteed to be shit? Has there been a movie based on television series that was worth a rental price? Starsky and Hutch, maybe.

Where's the Diff'rent Strokes remake movie? Which relentlessly untalented young actress could possibly outdo that sex kitten Dana Plato?

And Click? Really? Adam Sandler gets a "universal remote" that allows him to control the universe. And one of the tricks he uses it for is to ogle a female jogger's bouncing breasts when he slows her down. Yup, funny stuff. Okay, I'm being critical of this before I've disdainfully passed the box in the video store, but this was an idea - one of being able to stop time while you went and did your thing - that I thought was cool when I was nine.

I remember we used to go to the movies in the summer for the ferocious blast of the air conditioning... I guess I'll have to resort to drinking so much I don't notice the heat, it worked in college.

Episode #3

Last night we opened up the show – Crescendo Falls, Episode 3 (The Hump Episode).

It is a soap opera parody. It’s a funny show. It’s a late night show, which means it starts at 11, and with the opening night party afterwards I didn’t get to sleep till close to 3. And then came to work at 6:30.

I am on my last reserve of energy right now, and am close to perpetrating some heinous act of bloody violence on my coworkers in the next row; something that involves a three hole punch and nail polish remover…

I’m proud to say that I may be growing up a little bit everybody. Last night I relegated myself to 2 beers (well two beers and a healthy swallow of scotch provided by one of my charming cast mates) knowing that I would be hating myself today if I indulged my typically wicked hunger for alcohol. And while I am not necessarily enjoying myself today, I am also not quelling the pressing urge to purge the meager items I have consumed into my paper recycling box.

This is better than I would have done for myself a couple of years ago. Hell, it’s better than I would have done a couple weeks ago. It will be short lived, I’m sure…

Anyway, I just wanted to throw out there that I have been amazingly lucky in my theater endeavors thus far and have been blessed with working with some fantastic and talented people. I’m honored to share a stage (for a few brief minutes) and dressing room with this group.

And now I must go Paleolithic on someone with office supplies. And then sleep – so much with the sleep.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Insistor by Tapes 'N Tapes

piouspeter@hmail.com

Peter had signed up for Christian online dating as a reaction to all the spam emails he got. For a couple of weeks, there was a new one in his mailbox daily; "Meet and Date Other Christians". The spam for erectile medications at cheaper prices or Michelle and Sarah looking for a "fckbddy" were bad enough, but spamming for Christian online dating just seemed particularly sleazy. And yes Peter realized now that what he had done was very reactionary, but at the time the idea had made him laugh.

Peter began cruising the site for ladies in his area. He would date them a couple of times and then work in earnest to convert the ladies away from the church. The first one had been remarkably easy, as if she had just been looking for a reason to go running to Buddhism. After that it became a bit of an addiction. He loved a challenge, and the ones that were particularly hard to break just felt like a bigger victory; against what he wasn't sure. The breaking point for a devout young lady named Shelly was when he performed his John the Baptist routine which a dominatrix had taught him. The last time he saw her she was peddling tarot fortunes and wearing a lot of leather.

He was subtle about what he was doing, never tipping his hand. But apparently word started getting around about this internet interloper, preying on trustworthy Christian ladies online. He first heard about it from one of his marks. She slyly asked if he was the Godless heathen turning the lambs of God away from their righteous path. He played it off, but inside felt like some kind of hell bent rock star.

He began to learn that some of these online singles were actively seeking him out, either to test their faith or to add some sense of danger to their lives. Even if he managed to convert them away, he still kept his identity hidden like some sort of blasphemous super hero. By his own accounts, he had about a 65% success rate in conversions.

He was contemplating giving up the life after one last attempt at conquest - victoria@hotforjesus.com. He set up the date, met her at a restaurant and studied her for ways inside while he sipped wine and listened to her talk about her youth church camp.

But then things began to get fuzzy.

When Peter awoke, he was strapped inside a van, surrounded by eight ladies - all with crucifix necklaces. Normally this would be fantasy worthy, but the unspoken looks being bounced around between the passengers led him to believe rumors he had heard from his past ladies, rumors of conversion camps in the deep forests of the south.

Insomnia = Desperation

So, it's been a week of late nights, what with rehearsals and such, and I've been seeing a lot more late night TV than I am used to. The routine the last few days has been to enter apartment, empty bladder, open beer and sit with a weary sigh to watch South Park on the local UPN affiliate - yeah, we still don't have cable.

What starts to get really interesting on small "networks" (like UPN or WB) after 11pm is the commercials they toss out for the late night demographics. I guess they've always been there, but the more that I wean myself from the demon TV, the more transparent things become.

There are the obligatory party line commercials, where some model type assures us in psuedo-porn tones that there are ladies just like her in great numbers, reminiscent of the once mighty and thundering herds of buffalo, just sitting around and waiting for our call. Yes, that's right, thundering herds of soon to be amateur porn stars, pretty - if your idea of pretty is vapid and brainless and being told what pretty is, just cold chillin' and dying to talk to you. You!

Last night I was treated to a double shot of spots for an "herbal male enhancement" pill. The clever imagery included a man who had used the product with an unending smile and his wife smiling as well, as she was now apparently sexually satisfied for the first time in her married life. When said man's swimming trunks accidentally come off, the neighbor ladies looked on with dick-hungry smiles, the men with dour and jealous frowns. Oh yeah, there was also the envious neighbor watering his garden with a hose, that stopped spraying and went limp when product man walked by.

Subtle.

So what I gather from this is that lonely, small-dicked men apparently watch a lot of television late at night. I guess every marginalized section of society needs its chance to be abused by advertisers.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Re-Make/Re-Model by Roxy Music

Roommate #1

Sunday, June 18th, was Father's Day, but it was also the birthday of the elusive first roommate. Every time June 18th rolls around, I give a little mental shout out hoping that he's okay out there, wherever he is.

It's one of those things due to a lack of closure that will always haunt me, that will always leave this jagged hole that I can't help but pick at.

We met in high school, our relationship already built on turmoil simply due to the age, the times, the uncontrollable actions around us. My family had just moved to California, and somehow the change had sent a shockwave through the members that sent us scattering. My parents turned to foul, menacing and detached folk. My brother, a gregarious and energetic pre-teen, seemed to jump all over the top of the coursing friction and weirdness with a hyperactivity that probably saved him from too many permanent scars, but I know he got pulled down in the mire enough times to get battered (often by me). I was a teenager, and I was busy harboring and planting the anger that would turn around to bite me on the ass in my twenties, what would become the biggest and most evil monkey on my back. I was doing anything and everything I could to escape that claustrophobic house and the family that had seemingly become untrustworthy strangers overnight.

And so, I ran straight from my dysfunction and into the steam and dramatic thunder of his. It was entertaining for me as I had no personal stakes in it.

His mom parked herself in a Lay-Z-Boy, smoking one menthol after another and reading paperback romances with gaudy and ornate covers. She had this remarkable ability to completely shut out everything around her, and so to get her attention you would have to call her first name three or four times, that last time usually at a bellow that fell well beyond normal societal conventions. His sister seemed like a movie prop, like some demented director’s idea of a symbol for bi-polar disorder. She would be excited, happy and funny one moment, and would turn, literally without warning, into a shrieking harpy with a viciousness that was accompanied by a great show of throwing objects and overturning furniture. And of course he was quiet and shy, funny and brilliant, but you could see demons in his eyes and an anger you could tell even back then could very well eat him alive.

We eventually lived together, tested boundaries together, tried to figure ourselves out together; we tested the waters of that freakish couple of years between 18 and 21. He was eventually stolen and roughly carried away by a barbarian horde of his own making, a rip tide that I didn't understand. Yet.

So now, nearly 15 years later and all those unused words and aborted conversations having turned to dust and blown back into the ether, I think of him. I wonder if he made it through. I wonder if, a couple of days ago, he got to celebrate both his birthday and being a dad.

Swords, Trains And Auto-Hypnosis

I doubt that it's the proverbial double-edged sword - in fact I don't know if there is a proverbial double-edged sword... In fact, while I don't know much about swords in general, it would make sense that most swords are double edged so as to inflict the most damage, to cut both ways as it were. Is there actually a proverb regarding double-edged swords?

I found this proverb - Give me a good sword and no reason to use it. I like it, peaceful but prepared with a well made weapon. On brief research I also came up with, "Never give a child a sword". This seems more like good advice than a proverb, general common sense. Hopefully this is something that doesn't need to be covered in parenting classes, though knowing the people I deal with on a daily basis, there will eventually be lawsuits against said classes...

"You never told me that givin' ma little one a sword would make it so his daddy's missin' fingers and he's dead. There shoulda beena warnin'!"

And being that with any choice you make there is bound to be a positive side of it as well as a negative, this double edged sword nonsense sounds more like a useless cliché.

Did you ever try to stretch and flatten a penny by putting it on a railroad track for a train to run over? No? It's cool. Did you ever hear that putting a penny on a railroad track can derail a train? I know of something that can derail me pretty quickly, proverbs and double edged swords apparently...

What I was trying to quickly but ineffectively state awhile back is that I love acting. I get a lot out of doing it, but there are drawbacks. An example of drawbacks are, rehearsals everyday for a week, right up until the show opens on Friday. Did I mention that Sunday's rehearsal was 11 hours? Actually I know I didn't, I am the one writing this...

And that's fine, 11 hours of being in a theater, I knew what I was getting into. The bummer comes when Annie and Steve come up to Seattle from Santa Barbara for a surprise visit and I only get to spend a sleepy hour or so having breakfast with them.

And I get all worked up during rehearsals, which makes it difficult to quickly drop off to sleep when I get home. I’ve been thinking about using the book Chris and Greta gave us that offers 10 things that are almost guaranteed to hypnotize. Almost…

So I guess this was a really long winded way to tell you all I'm a little tired and cranky, but excited. Sorry, my 11th grade English teacher was right, I need to learn to get to the fucking point.

Reel Around The Fountain

Reahearsal was down in the Seattle Center last night. The Seattle Center by the way is probably the first place you take friends visiting from out of town; it’s where the Space Needle is, it’s where the Pacific Science Center and its arches are, it’s where the Experience Music Project is, it's where the Fun Forest is.

Fuck yeah, Fun Forest!

There is also the international fountain, a big fountain sort of in the center of things.

It’s made up of a big metal half sphere in the center of this cone-like crater, as if the fountain crash landed here from space.

When I was walking out, I noticed that the water was shooting towards the sky along to the music being piped into hidden speakers around it. There was fucking fog and everything!

Pearl Jam was up and going when I first got there. Jimi Hendrix next – Purple Haze. I was halfway around the fountain when I realized we were blocked in by strange fencing designed to keep you off the grass and I was going to have to walk all the way around the frigging thing just to get back to where I was.

This is also when the Presidents Of The United States Of America began to play from the speakers, and when I sagely announced, “ah, it’s a Seattle block.” It seemed a bit much to be happening in a center designed to sing the “glories” of Seattle already, but whatever.

Erik guessed that Heart’s Magic Man would be next. I put my money on Nirvana’s Come As You Are, it seemed perfect what with the spurting water everywhere.

I Hope The Worst Isn't Over

I love me The Mountain Goats, especially seeing them live. Why, do you ask? Well, let me tell you - in a meandering post kind of way. I'm punchy today, watch it...

As I've told a large number of people (and if you've been lucky enough to avoid this rant in the past, well your luck has run out), John Darnielle, the lead singer/songwriter is a man with a miraculous ability to throw out his passion and his emotions, unreserved and seemingly unashamed. I have yet to see another performer put themselves out there on such a true, true level. And I can see where this could seem like a downer, like a show that could become maudlin any second, but it simply does not happen. The guy is so into what he's doing that he roils with a holy fire, and he happened to choose to put a guitar and microphone in front to catch it and put it out there.

This sort of in the moment, emotional truthfulness allows an instant in for those witnessing the show, if you want in. I believe that if you come away from a Mountain Goats show unmoved, than you are dead inside.

I'm only kidding, you're just stupid.

After the show, I was reminiscing about shows from years ago, where he would sit on a stool, just him and his acoustic guitar. He would play the shit out of things and tell these great, hilarious, rambling stories like the kid in school who would start over-talking with that nervous and stumbling gait when put on the spot. He used to have no set list, would often just ask the crowd what they wanted to hear. It was like a VH1 Storytellers, that show where someone like Hall and Oates would come play acoustic numbers and talk about where the song came from, except it didn't suck.

John Darnielle is sort of like the ultimate geeky fanboy (much like his fans, much like me), and he's totally okay with it. He wore a homemade shirt that had the name of a boxer he loved, and then told one of his great sort of stand up stories about the man when someone asked about the shirt, all the while the bass player changed John's broken string. In a song preamble he mentioned that said song was so old it was from when he was putting out tapes, effectively beating the other fanboys to their bragging rights of listening to the band since he was putting out tapes. He attempted to perfect his "Pete Townsend jump" on stage, actually telling us that's what he was doing; and while it was funny, you knew it was absolutely true.

I don't know what else I can say. The guy's music just hits me directly, slaps me around something fierce, leaves me feeling like my soul has been released, refilled and reaffirmed. I'm happy to be able to share this time with the man, happy that I found out about him.

Why Would I Be A Liar?

So, a lot like last June, The Mountain Goats and Built To Spill have come to town within days of each other. We saw The Mountain Goats Friday night and Built To Spill last night. And if I were to live up to my anal retentive internal ordering system*, I would write about the mighty Goats first, but I'm revolting today.

I probably should have showered. And not brushed my teeth with a cat ass.

So, effing Built To Spill. Have I mentioned these guys before? I heart this band way too much, and have since I first heard them about 10 years ago. Before I go into superlatives though, I need to vent a bit.

Okay, if you're going to a show, can you do me a favor and SHUT THE FUCK UP! I do not get why in the hell people want to come watch a show, waste their money, insult the performers working their asses off just to prattle on about their inane bullshit. I certainly know I didn't fork over the ticket handling rape charge so I could listen to a few hundred people talk about what they had for lunch, or how that one Coach bag is really adorable, or about that creepy Astin guy in the mailroom. By definition, a concert is not a frat party, don't make me stab you with forks!

Also, some asshole spent the first couple of minutes of the Built To Spill set heckling lead genius Doug Martsch, screaming out things like "you suck" and "you're a sell out". Seriously, who does this? What sort of sociopath pays for a ticket to come insult the band and ruin the experience for everyone around them. To her eternal credit, Biff clawed through the crowd to go tell the guy to shut the hell up.

Oh and ladies, nothing tells your man that you love him like agreeing to go see this band that he's really into even though you don't really know them or care. Oh, and then if you cling to him all night as if losing any sort of physical contact will send him spinning out of your life forever... Hot! And not at all desperate.

Okay, I'm sorry, I feel better. Sometimes I get so frustrated with other concert goers that it makes me not want to go to shows anymore. But then...

I'm not going to try to explain away that tenuous magic that gets wrapped around you and a band that just absolutely works for you, but seeing Built To Spill for me is sort of like riding a roller coaster; I get this fuzzy pinned tickle in my gut and spend a majority of the show with the grin that belongs to the child me running wild for the sake of running wild, seeing fireworks for the first time. I don't know man, they just got what works for me.

Some highlights:
1) The most heartfelt rendition of Car I've heard performed.

2) Goin’ Against Your Mind, Conventional Wisdon, Untrustable, Broken Chairs. These glorious mini epics that kept hitting plateaus and then would take off once again. It was a great reminder that these songs need to be heard live if at all effing possible.

3) Liar. It felt like the man was singing to me. And yeah, I know it sounds like that weirdo fanboy groupie bullshit, but what can I say? The song hit me directly, like it was well aimed.

All right, I've gushed, I've vented... I will say that even though I got home after 1:30 and was completely exhausted, it took me close to an hour to fall asleep with all that beautiful music shimmering through my head.

Thanks Doug, thanks guys.


*I keep my CD's in alphabetical order, and then try to keep them in chronological order within the group - it's a sickness, I'm working on it.

Sick Again

I know that no one is interested in my lame sickness excuses, nor are they probably interested in hearing the description of sickness - but screw you, I'm writing this blog.

I'll keep it to a minimum: Weird mono-like weariness overtakes your intrepid blog writer come Monday following a marathon of George Romero zombie movies the night before. Realizing that the same is happening Tuesday, Billy sees that his body is attempting to shut down on him, he uses the third person liberally and calls in sick to sleep away yet another day.

I'm back at it today, but feel even more disconnected than I did before - really fuzzy. You ever have that feeling like your malicious and irresponsible roommate (the same one that sings along to REO Speedwagon while he masturbates, loudly) has spiked your beverage with three or four vicodine, and that it's unfortunately one of those rides where you can still feel the various aches and pains - you just care a lot less? Yeah, me too. I realize that I'm not making a whole lot of sense to people I talk to, I realize that it is taking me about 3 times as long to put thoughts together, I just care a lot less.

I was thinking that I'm generally happier with the way my body is currently dealing with sickness. I'm not getting sick as often, nor for as long as I used to. On the walk to work today, Led Zeppelin's Sick Again popped up on the ipod. Coincidence? If I remember correctly, the song is about having sex with underage groupies. Coincidence?

Okay, I guarantee you all I have not been having sex with underage groupies.

Except that one...

So yeah, after this whole work thing (which is going SO GOOD), I'm seeing Built to Spill. I know that the healing force of Doug Martsch and company will set me up just right. Y'hear me Martsch, I need you to pull out the big guns tonight, no fucking around!

Take Me To The River

Ah, the Eel River. I've had some of my better days in that water. I remember after one draining hot day in the Dos Rios area getting in that river and feeling my soul itself revived. The river is so tied to visits to Dos Rios (I mean , it's in the name for fuck's sake), that it would be wrong to not get into that coursing snow melt, even if it's the first day of a very cold January.

Yeah, seemed like a good idea at the time...

A brief note on rivers: A river is a large natural waterway. The source of a river may be a lake, a spring, or a collection of small streams, known as headwaters. From their source, all rivers flow downhill, typically terminating in the ocean. The mouth, or lower end, of a river is known as its base level. A river's water is normally confined to a channel, made up of a stream bed between banks. Most rainfall on land passes through a river on its way to the ocean. Smaller side streams that join a river are tributaries. The scientific term for any flowing natural waterway is a stream; so in technical language, the term river is just a shorthand way to refer to a large stream.

When we first arrived, we went to the river. We had been warned that it was still high, still swift, still cold. We had been told that a few weeks before some other foolhardy soul had lost his life attempting the raft it without experience. I would not be deterred.

The level had gone down, but that shit was cold and not hard to imagine as snow not very long ago. The current as well was still strong, strong enough to see. I tried to make the most of it, and after going numb stayed in the water longer than was probably smart. On getting back to the house I had a chill that I simply could not shake. Only after putting on socks and sitting in the Honda, a virtual oven as it had sat parked in the sun all day, did I finally begin to feel comfortable. Still, I knew it would not be the last attempt into the water.

See here's the thing, I love being in water, I love swimming. And it's not like a, "hey, wouldn't it be fun to get in the water" sort of thing, it's an imperative. It's something my brain pushes me to, and has since I was a child. It's something I need. But above that, the river teaches me something every time I enter it. It's different every time, depending on what it is I'm bringing to the river. I won't say a lot about it as it was my lesson and meant specifically for me, but I will say...

Hang on for a second. I went hiking and camping in Sedona, Arizona when I was a younger man and had a profound experience there. A short while after I got a framed picture of one those glorious Sedona bluffs with a Wordsworth quote beneath. It hung in my apartment for many years, but it wasn't until now that I finally, clearly understood this fairly simple thought that Wordsworth felt strongly enough to pass on:
Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.

So there's that. After a week of hot weather, the river thinned out a bit, warmed up a bit, and made for a glorious Sunday afternoon. There was beer, there was laughter, there were dives off stone edifices, there was jumping with abandon into deep and rushing rapids only to have the force of the river whip you around the bend and show you no matter how strong you think you are there's always a force greater. There was love, there was the bittersweet knowledge that we would be leaving this place for probably a long while to come, and there was uplifting knowledge the river had seen fit to give me even though I didn't know I needed it.

Were these short hours better than seeing those pigs? Were they better than seeing that young bear just peering out the forest, seemingly to just see what the hell was going on out there? Were they better than feeling that immediate closeness of old friends, of taking part in that rush of overlapping conversation that was just another movement in a huge jazz symphony? Was it all better than the warm tears of realizing how much love you are blessed with this go around?

Nope. But all of it, all of it was a part of this miraculous and meandering voyage.

Up The Glass Beach

Chris had the great idea to leave the bookstore early and head out to Ft. Bragg and visit the North Coast Brewing Company. So we took off out to the coast on Highway 20, another of those narrow and windy roads that takes you twice as long to get somewhere than it should. The whole trip out, I had a line from the Dieselhed song BA Band stuck in my head, the one that goes, "bragging to the barmaid about a show we once had in Ft. Bragg”. We checked into a hotel and went to have beers and dinner at the brewery.

A brief note on the North Coast Brewing Company: This is the brewery that makes Acme Ale, as well as Red Seal. The first time I had visited the establishment was after taking a speeder trip from Willits to Ft. Bragg. What is a speeder trip? A speeder is a small box-like vehicle that runs on rail lines. This was an amazing and beautiful experience, but also probably the coldest I have ever been in my life. When we stopped halfway through the trip at a little shack of a snack bar that sat in a clearing in the woods near the rail lines, my hands were shaking so hard that I was spilling the piping hot coffee I had just purchased all over my hands. It took a couple of seconds realize this, and then to realize that the scalding coffee actually felt pretty good. Anyway, we ended up at the North Coast Brewing Company as it was close to the rail lines. I got an "Old #38 Stout" shirt to commemorate the trip as I like me some stout, and the shirt was black and had a train on it.

We ate well, shared a taster tray of all the beers on tap, and then split a bottle of the Brother Thelonius, a Belgium ale that was tasty, and had a great label with Thelonius Monk decked out in monk regalia and a keyboard halo. I was smitten. I recommend tracking it down if you like yourself some Belgium ale, it will apparently be available in California, Portland and Seattle.

We went back to the room, full and feeling fine. We sat around and watched a mish-mash of Dukes of Hazzard, country music videos and Back To The Future until we were ready to venture back out for ice cream. We were shut out of a number of dessert establishments as they were closed (damn you clever and sexy Stephen Colbert for keeping us in the room later than we should have stayed), so we finally settled on buying ice cream at the Safeway.

For some reason this turned into an all out junk food binge purchase party that included two kinds of chips, two kinds of Ben & Jerry's, cookies, Wheat Thins and Eazy Cheese. Yes, Easy Cheese.

The scene that followed in the hotel room was reminiscent of a number of sad scenes where one of our favorite characters is shown in the throws of their drug addiction. There was the excitement, the paranoia, the scrambling for crumbs when the Andy Capp brand Cheese Fries were spilled to the ground. The Eazy Cheese flowed like, well like Eazy Cheese. The highs were exhilarating and the lows came with the realization that a large number of the awful products we were gorging ourselves with contained MSG.

We crashed, and we crashed hard - sick with ourselves and sick with the influx hydrogenated oils into our systems.

The next morning, Chris and Greta left early to get back to the bookstore and Biff and I went up to Glass Beach. Glass Beach used to the dumping ground for old bottles from nearby companies, and over the years the mighty waves of the Pacific have pounded and rounded down that glass until the beach was covered with shiny, glass pebbles. Leave it to Americans to make a tourist attraction out of an industrial waste dump…

And despite the cynicism there, Glass Beach was pretty cool. Biff looked around at all that ocean glass, and I wandered into the tide pools singing along to the Dieselhed song I had stuck in my head (this time the song Tidepool). I listened to the surf pound into the intricately carved rocks about 100 yards out, thought about teaching a child about tide pools and trying to remember how my grandfather had explained the tides to me, and I wondered just how much money the guy selling beach glass off the hood of car in the parking lot made.

The Book Juggler

Chris and Greta bought themselves a bookstore. It’s in Willits (see below post for a brief geographical description of Willits), it’s on Main Street (which is technically Highway 101) and it’s adorable. It makes me happy thinking of them with that bookstore, knowing that over the years they will turn it into a wondrous extension of themselves.

The store is ginormous. It keeps opening onto further rooms where you expect to come to some final back wall. It reminds me of Green Apple in San Francisco, which I also love, and has all these maze like rows and hidden rooms full of freaking books.

A brief note on Chris and Greta: Chris and Greta drunkenly agreed to run off and get married with us. This involved a large rented car, a late night and hell bent drive to Reno, a $100 bottle of scotch, many games of bowling, a three hour stay in a sketchy hotel room that apparently doubled as a set for a film about crack whores, the tackiest wedding chapel we could find, a female minister that for some reason I remember having a fake hand (though I’m almost positive she didn’t) and a two for one coupon to pay for the weddings. Our names are on their marriage certificate, theirs on ours – we often mention all being married to each other in a joking way, but we know how literal it is. Chris is also of the same sort of neurotic collector type as me.

Anytime I walk into a used bookstore, there are certain books I always look for, certain authors. Though I probably wouldn’t buy any William S. Burroughs any longer, I always take a look at what said store might have – just to see what sort of book buyers I’m dealing with. I’ve been on the hunt for a book called Blameless In Abaddon by James Morrow for a couple of years now and have had no luck. But wandering around in Chris and Greta’s new bookstore? Of course, it’s there.

I’m excited for them and I’m proud of them. I step inside their store and can immediately feel that it’s a place that will be filled with their love and obsessions, their gorgeous style. I envy the people who get to be regulars.

If you find yourself in Willits, stop by The Book Juggler, they are currently working on Willits’ most impressive collection of tattoo books.

Pigs (Nine Different Ones)

I have lamented to people before that driving through Oregon will take a toll you did not foresee. It's a pretty drive and everything, but for some reason it seems to take for-fucking-ever. I think it may be that the landscape is all very similar, like watching the same background cycle over and over again when Fred and Barney run somewhere - if they run for five plus hours.

But break West, head towards California's lost coast and man oh man, there's beauty that will shake you. I constantly forget how much wilderness there is left in California. I often forget just how dark it can get there.

The rain that dogged us through Oregon finally stopped, we shook loose of the Memorial Day, SUV and towed speedboat traffic, and the rest of the hours to Dos Rios were spent with mostly laughter and smiles of wonder. We did take a few unnecessary detours down roads so narrow and windy they seem designed by someone determined in their derangement, roads you almost have to search out to travel. One road brought us to a three building "town" that had promised food from the highway - liars. One took us on a completely unnecessary tour of a slightly bigger town, chasing a phantom Carl's Jr. that was apparently a Brigadoon of fast food joints, only materializing every hundred years and only if the moon was right and the adventurers were true of heart.

Oh yeah, and one lane, windy and desolate Dos Rios Road, which began in Laytonville and would have shaved 45 minutes off the drive? The road where the pavement ended three miles in? The road that was actually closed, without prior warning, due to a wash out eight miles in? Well, we saw a peacock, and that was pretty rad.

Anyway, we got to Dos Rios around eight, just as the sunlight is at its most magical, where all that glowing wilderness and stark contrasted shadows just seem to throw an arm around your weary shoulders and say, "c'mon in, have a beer". And if the landscape doesn't actually say it, thank the fates for Greta and Chris who actually will.

A brief note on Dos Rios, California: Get on that glorious Golden Gate Bridge, headin' North out of San Francisco, and ride 2 and a half hours on the 101. You will reach a town called Willits. Willits is a small place, and had I not lived with someone who had run away from Orange County to live in Willits, I may never have heard of it. Now, travel past Willits another few minutes and look out for Highway 162 (a.k.a. Covelo Road), one of the afore mentioned desolate and windy roads. Hang on for a wild 15 miles that will take you 20-30 minutes, depending on how daring you are, and how well your vehicle corners, and you will arrive in Dos Rios. I'm not sure what the last census reported, but I believe Dos Rios has a population of no more than 20. It is literally in the middle of nowhere.

I need you to understand the sort of remoteness we're dealing with here, because it makes what happened on our second morning make a little more sense.

I woke up with a pressing urge to urinate as will happen when you drink copious amounts of beer the night before. Chris and Greta were having a heated discussion in the bathroom regarding a neighbor's water consumption so I figured I'd go throw a whiz off the cliff and towards the river that lies close to the house. I stood up, glanced out the window and had to do a sort of mental systems check just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.

On the short stretch of yard that leads to said cliff, were 9 or ten wild pigs milling about; big ones too. I noted that they weren't boars, there were no gnarly tusks or anything, but information files in my head told me that wild pigs can be dangerous.

"Um, there's a bunch of pigs in the yard," I told Biff. She immediately gave me that 'you're fucking crazy', "nu-uh".

I quietly knocked on the door to the bathroom, the door opened to Chris and Greta's expectant faces. "Uh guys, there's a bunch of pigs in your yard," I told them. Greta had a look on her face as though I had just told her that Miles Davis was churning butter inside the Delorean prop from Back To The Future and could be seen through the space-time rift that had just opened in the living room. Chris only simply and quietly said, "that doesn't happen".

They followed me out to the window. The hushed and ponderous quiet was swiftly broken by Greta's banshee like wails when she stepped outside to scare the pigs away. They bolted en masse, like a flock of birds.

Apparently, they are a wild pack of pigs (pod of pigs? school of pigs?) that roam around in the hills above Dos Rios and generally make a mess of the land they root around on. They had never come down that far though and Greta was scaring them off before they tore up the small patch of yard beneath the oak trees that supported the hammock.

I couldn't help but think, watching those pigs flee in mortal terror, of all that ham that would be so good with breakfast.

It's Like Monday, But With A Brain Tumor

Okay, hi everyone, I’m back at it.

I will regale all with tales of wild animals, debauchery and the sort of sunburn that seems like karmic payment for the good times, but I’m behind at the moment.

Coming back to work from a week long vacation sort of blows big, barbed dicks. I’m tired, I’m out of it, and the afore mentioned sunburn shrieks out every time my shirt scrapes against it - which is a lot, fuck you shirt. I am triple screwed as there is work that has backed up on me in my absence. It’s as if work ate a whole mess of cheese and I’m the paltry, token bowl of bran sent in to blow it out.

And nothing’s working right for me today. I have not been able to turn the mind over to work mode completely, I cannot seem to type a sentence without it sounding as if it came from the mind of a mentally disturbed garbage man and I’m walking funny. The brain gear switching I chalk up to a week away from computers and florescent lighting, the walking I’ll leave to your imagination.

But I will say that it’s very disturbing to be able to note how strangely you are walking, but seeing that your brain is too worn out or confused to fix the situation.

And yeah, poor me, I got to go on vacation and now I’m back at work and boo fucking hoo. But settle down Mr. Angry, all I’m saying is there’s a little re-conditioning that needs to happen here before I’m back to running on all cylinders, that I gotta get a little work done. Jeez, have a beer.

It’s good to be back, I’ve missed you guys. That shirt looks great.