Friday, October 29, 2010
This bird will fly
Goals: Spiritual thinking. No more copper and doodads. No more gadgets. This may mean the end of my digital career but I think it is for my own improved mental health. No, I don't think my choice will change the world, but it will make me more content. My mental disability forces me to consider the source and effects of all this plastic and copper and ion implantation and it is driving me insane.
Outfit van for trip: Stove, camping equipment, food, alternator, spare tire cover that says "Labrador or Bust: Arctic Wolf Tour 2010"
Say goodbye to everyone: Goodbye. It was nice to know you.
Con my brother into buying me a suitable camcorder for the trip.
Edit and deliver my stageplay that the local theater wishes to produce for next spring.
That is all.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
See the Aurora Borealis! Answer The Call of the Wild!
You want an adventure? You want to behold the glory of the northern lights in their natural setting? You want to travel North to
This trip includes, Door to Door service from New England to the
meals cooked to order in the van.
wilderness survival training and camping tutoring.
A safe and insured driver who wants to change the world starting with you.
Itinerary is up to you! No strings. No strict plans! No cocktail hour where you mingle with phony people. This is not a meet and greet where you talk about your past life. No. This is the part where you actually live. We will travel as the ancients did with the stars as our guide and with adventure as our destination.
We can go through Northern New Hampshire or
This trip will turn you into a new person and it is impossible to put a price on such a spiritually liberating course of action. Nothing can prepare you for this adventure that you will remember for the rest of your life and relive in countless dreams of happiness. You will come to understand the old adventure saying, "Even the bad times were good."
This is a team adventure. Money doesn't buy anything of value in this world. You pay your own way and we become a team only because we trust each other. You can't buy trust even if some limp dick lawyer can write a clause that claims to sell it. No, you earn trust with exercises that will take place in
I estimate $2000 will bring you home safely but the real price will be to the claws of capitalism that have you anchored to your desk, working for the wrong reasons, suffering in quiet desperation. Had enough of Tea Party lunacy and Democratic preposterousness? I have the answer and the answer is a dancing rainbow of light that will almost make you forget the negative 30 degrees that will freeze every part of your face and hands if you aren't careful. But it will change your entire point of view, it will change your soul, it will reveal to you the power of the earth and your place on it. In the distance a wolf howls to its mates in an ancient ritual of communication that will change you. Are you ready to listen to the message?
Contact Oggy Bleacher if this sounds like your cup of tea. Or keep poking at your computer screen and hoping a Wall Street fat cat doesn't mismanage your pension fund. There is more to life than 401K and aromatherapy. I will show you what that is.
Trips leaving soon. Be part of it or forever wonder what could have happened...
You do not pay for this adventure; you earn it. The Northern Lights are waiting for you.
· Location: Labrador /
· it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Dear Mr. President,
I urge you to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a new National Monument.
I have pondered the value of reckless innovation and have reached the conclusion that it can not continue. While great advances have been made in quantity of life, there have been very few made in quality of life. Proportionately, Mankind is no more content than in the Middle Ages, but we have eradicated countless species in the pursuit of an impossible longevity and grotesque comfort. Stock prices and the increased pyramid of wealth seem at the true root of this heedless attack on nature, not the benevolent lifting on Man from the mud as some CEOs would have us believe. I'm unconvinced and plead my case to you, Mr. President. Do not be swayed by the countless hacks and theives who would pry your soul open with their filthy claws. The Arctic wolf, the Polar Bear, the Musk Ox, the Hare, the Caribou, the Native American ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE DECADE OR TWO OF PETROLEUM THAT WILL BE STOLEN FROM BENEATH THEM! They are not yours or mine to sacrifice but ours to protect.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Dreams to Remember
Dreams to Remember by Otis Redding. This is how I enter my dream world...on the wings of velvet throaty tones, lyrics that observe the world without the satin sheets and post production values of manipulation. DO NOT DISCOURAGE THE VAIN FROM THEIR JOURNEY AMONG THEIR SORROWS! Otis beats me on the head with his Adam's apple language. Like a volcano I am emerging from a dormant period the subducted rock of my sadness slowly melting into magma that MUST ERUPT INTO ARCTIC WOLF MADNESS. Here you witness my desire for unattainable longings and flesh that once was warm and close and is now a million miles away and dreams I once gently guided with training wheel care into full growth but that have since withered into dry capers of agony and only through the milking of my weakened soul can i engorge them again to fullness and when ripe I align them with the unnamed stars in the sky. Otis, take my hand.
Collapsed at work after long bouts with high productivity. There is nothing there but arthritis and prostate problems there, discussions of the springtime we never had and the youth that has grown gray on my chin like a billy goat who nears death.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Review of NTB Tires in Newington, New Hampshire: Grade F
"My hands are tied."
Ah, if anything reeks of corporate training, weakness, and incompetence it is that admittance of uselessness: "My hands are tied."
Everyone from Wall Street fat cats who eat blue collar pension funds out of the pussies of 16 year old whores to quavering Presidents with Alzehimers to true cunts wearing shiny flare buttons will mutter this repulsive trope. When the shit finally goes down they all smirk and say, "My hands are tied." with the obligatory shoulder shrug.
And we are bigger cunts if we allow them to get away with it.
Let me explain...
Went to NTB to discuss my alignment. I spent another $250 today to have the Ibeams tweaked so the tires would not be chewed up as they were after leaving NTB. It's a long tale and unless you have a mid '70s Twin Ibeam ford van or truck then this is not something you need to care about. But if you do have one then DO NOT take it to NTB.
The saga in short form:
Back in July I spent $300 at NTB for two new tires and an alignment. First of all, a rear tire exploded a day after leaving NTB. Then a rear wheel bearing seized up causing great and numerous problems. Once that was sorted out I saw that the tires were horribly aligned, visually off which means they were way off. Others agreed and I returned to NTB tires and they also agreed that the alignment, expecially the camber, was all wrong. Funny, the exact shop that had done the original work was telling me how bad it looked. They actually asked,
"Who did this alignment?"
"Uh, you guys. Here's the receipt."
"Oh."
They again could not do anything to help, scratching their asses as you do when clueless.
So, I left NTB again with a terrible alignment and upon closer inspection determined the inner 1/4 of the tire was actually below the wear marker indicating time to replace...after 800 miles. This postponed my Labrador/Arctic Wolf quest indefinitely and after digging into the depths of Banfield road it was decided that only a rare procedure known as straightening the I-Beam would actually reposition the tires correctly. Internet research confirmed this. The procedure could not be done on Banfield but rather on Route 1 by an RV and big rig/bus service shop called Coastal Truck and Auto Body. They estimated a $400 bite from Oggy's wallet but since the van is running so well and ion implanters are being ordered like bean and cheese burritos, I agreed. I can't keep running through tires (the last front tires bubbled out until they were running on metal radial...and this was becoming ridiculous.
So, this morning found me at 5 am running down the foggy road (route 1) trying to loosen my load on my 1974 Vespa Ciao after dropping the 1969 van off so I could get to work at the robot factory. I swear that watching 10 minutes of my life would leave most people hysterically laughing. 5 minutes of Jersey Shore made me want to shoot myself in the mouth but an average visit to the bathroom with me is like a Jerry Lewis short movie.
Anyway, I pick the van up after work and the thing is dialed in. They torqued the I-Beam with clevis hooks and bottle jacks, a procedure I've seen pictures of, and they adjusted the toe and all. The alignment looks good and feels good and only cost $250. Which leaves me with a $300 reciept at NTB that I am scratching my ass about. The alignment they gave me was useless and because it was useless the two tires are now toast. I understand that it is my responsibility to not patronize a garage of pot smoking idiots but let's not cry over spilled milk. I just want to have two new tires on an aligned front end. And I paid $100 for an alignment that was obviously totally useless. Which brings us to this afternoon as I walked into NTB with a handful of reciepts and a small attitude.
I don't want to transcribe the entire conversation even though I could do so. I will highlight some moments that are especially revealing.
Me: See, it actually cost $300 to get the alignment done correctly. I had no problem paying that. But my question is if I got it aligned somewhere else then what did I pay you for?"
Tim: uh huh.
Me: I mean, what did you do? I left here with a crappy alignment that burned through two new tires. What did you accomplish?
Tim: I'll be right back.
Tim brought reinforcements in the form of a square-jawed grease monkey who "Had never heard of straightening an I-Beam."
Me: That van is older than all three of us. They haven't done I-Beam straightening in twenty plus years. But it is a true procedure. Look it up.
Here's something I'll print out for square jaw to look at...
"If the Twin I-Beam axles are the forged variety, which were used from 1965 through 1981, camber can be corrected by bending the axle with a hydraulic ram. To make a make a positive camber correction, a rigid work beam is slung under the axle from a pair of clevis blocks. A hydraulic ram is then placed under the middle of the axle. When pressure is applied, the ram bends the axle upward and tilts the knuckle down to increase camber. A slight amount of overbending is usually needed to compensate for spring back in the axle. A negative camber correction is made by removing the outboard clevis block and inserting a spacer between the work beam and axle. The hydraulic ram is then repositioned directly under the inner axle bushing. When pressure is applied, the work beam bends the outer end of the axle up which tilts the knuckle and decreases camber."
Square Jaw: I've never worked on one but I think they gave you a line of bullshit. There is no way...
Me: Call them and tell them that because they've forgotten more about alignments than you will ever know.
Exit Square Jaw.
Tim: I don't know what I can do for you.
Me: Refund everything. All $300. The alignment was useless. It was negligent for you to attempt it in this shop.
Tim: Those tires have some life left on them. The steel radials won't be showing any time soon.
Me: Great! I'll give them to you when I replace them and you can sell them again.
Tim: You'll have to talk to our manager, Tony.
Me: Wheel him out.
Tim: He's not here.
Me: So you're the big man in charge and your hands are tied?
Tim: I can't help you.
Now, I'm not an abusive person and I know Tim has been trained to pass the buck because he isn't authorized to make a refund like this. It's corporate policy to avoid responsibility and avoid any refunds...always prolong the problem because most people will be too busy to pursue it. Sooner or later they will die. In fact, I'm too busy to pursue it. I'll call the manager who will also deny me satisfaction. I can call all the people I want and they will not refund my money. It will take a court order three years from now to get my $300 back and I believe all the evidence points to neglect and incompetence. For the service boss of NTB to say confidently that a pro auto alignment shop "Definitely fed you a line of bullshit." is just proof he has no idea what he's talking about. It's a procedure that he will never do in his life unless he works on thirty-year old Ford vans and trucks. But to run his mouth instead of admitting ignorance is proof that corporate monkeys will proceed without caution into things they know nothing about. That whole shop will go to their grave thinking they could align that van and a few miles away is a shop that can actually align the van. It should be NTB mandate to decline service to 1980 vehicles and older. Why? Because most of the kids working there were born in 1980.
So, I'm good at a few things and not resenting corporate buffons is one of them. I hold no grudges and consider it a lesson learned. Of course I will speak truth to power and discredit the NTB brand whenever I can but I will do it in a way that does not make me out to be a grudge-holder. I know they were unable to do the work and they know that too but they still tried and failed and charged me for their failure. NTB SERVICE TECHS FAILED. They failed and still charged me money for their failure which they now refuse to refund and claim that their hands are tied. It is this that makes them cunts. Would you bring your car to a mechanic whose hands are tied?
For me to ignore this would be irresposible because they also need to learn their lesson as I have learned: Namely, not to have my van worked on at NTB. I can move forward toward this goal without venom in my heart or hateful words on my lips. This is the universe speaking to me in muted words no different than the rustling of leaves when a deer takes a shit. I move through the placid river of life at times in eddies of sadness and tumult and in times of gentle repose. Money lost is not something I resent or begrudge. I see everything as payment for lessons and the greatest lessons cost the most and I will tell you that $300 is not a significant amount for anything. Wisdom costs much more and the currency doesn't come from your wallet.
I should mention that nothing short of refund will satisfy me. Even if they offered to replace the tires I will refuse. "That van never enters that garage again." will be my comment. You don't complain and then let them touch your car again just like you don't send food back at a restaurant. Either eat it or walk out.
The story isn't over but I've said all I want to say about it.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Analysis
Another was,
"Colonoscope guidewire"
and
"Book about Oggy Dog."
I don't know what to make of this except the terms "Climate Change and simple living" are never the terms that get people to my blog. I need to focus more on that. God, what did that person think when he wanted to see a hobo sucking cock for money and found himself reading my environmental/political rants? Did he feel he was misled? Did he instantly click back and adjust his search terms? I want him back and I want to change his mind. No, really, there are hobos sucking cock here...I swear! I'm a hobo and I'm sucking cock right now! Look!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
One year ago....
Psychologist: And what about the biggest thrill you've ever had outside of gambling?
Dan Mahowny: Twenty.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Sacrifice...
Now, I'm an ad junkie and because of that, like a magician, I can see the strings behind any trick. It makes them less fun but then I'm only impressed by the ones that are so arresting that I forget for a second I'm being manipulated. This Verizon one is terrible. Obviously going for the "Frail Girl Empowered By Our Product" approach. Like, she's her own thinker and Verizon is just enabling her to text pics of her tits to her married lover. Awesome! Thanks Verizon! But I approve of a consistent propaganda campaign and theirs is good. Women are the over all number one income earner in America since the higher paid men were all laid off recently. They are the biggest spenders and the best market to manipulate so Verizon has completely tailored their campaign to under 40 women. I approve because this obeys the rule of branding which is to focus and be memorable. That's where I have trouble with my blog. This was supposed to be a branding exercise in counter culture joy. I would represent an agent of change that would be so magnetic that everyone would flock to simpler living...but life got in the way and all I represent is a depressed hobo spitting on the walmart parking lot. I've become an exact reason why no one should do what I'm doing. FUCK! How did that happen. It's like a cell phone ad where all the calls get dropped and the phone breaks. Well, I wouldn't buy that piece of shit. Now people look at me and say, "Look, that's the reason I shop at Walmart and work 9-5 filing paper. I don't want to end up like that!"
As far as redefining sacrifice, I think you are on the right track. Trans-formative-culture media such as this should concentrate on reversing the accepted paradigm. Thoreau would say that our gadgets aren't saving us time, they're stealing time from future generations who will have to clean up our mess. Maybe the mess cured small pox but it also eradicated honey bees which makes gardening impossible. A buddy of mine would say it all comes down to education and worldwatch is a leader in critical, humanist education. Keep asking the right questions and we will find the answers together.
Friday, October 22, 2010
stove

Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Wood stove in Van
Well, someone should tell the Sherpas who packed them up Mt. Everest during the first ascents. Or the Russian vets who survived the siege of Leningrad by sleeping in tents heated with a wood stove. Or hell, is driving with 8 cylinders exploding highly volatile gas in a pressurized steel case safe? Is it?
Anyway, I'm freezing to death every night without some heat and I'm a caveman at heart so in spite of the carbon creating effects of burning my paper waste I will survive the cold Labrador nights with the wood stove. My only problem is where to put the thing. There's not much room in the 9 X 5 space. But that also means it won't take much to heat the thing up. Of course, the mini hot tub is going to much harder to fit in...
advice?
this is how it turned out |
Monday, October 18, 2010
Is this crazy enough for you?
Not long after this was recorded I was escorted off the property following my calistenics routine in the middle of the parking lot. I was yelling, "IS THIS CRAZY ENOUGH FOR YOU?"
The problem is I'm not content with the status quo and am trying to get to Labrador but am being delayed by mechanical upgrades.
The hypocrisy is this: I say the deepwater horizon spill is a calamity that can not be ignored. We have to change our ways yesterday. There is no five year or ten year plan for the cormorants and dolphins of the Gulf of Mexico. They are suffering today. And the casual response is, "What are we gonna do? Mankind will eventually go extinct when we poison the ocean and acid rain makes all men impotent and women are either forced to pay a Tom Cruise clone (alien invader) to impregnate them or else remain barren."
But for some reason my personal emotional decay, one person out of 7 billion, is cause for concern. Uh, what kind of priorities are going on here? I'm talking about the species of the wolf and people are worried I sleep outside in a storm that poured gallons of water on my bed and I spent all night protecting my Lionel Richie songbook. Who cares about me? The wolves are in deep trouble. The whales. The damn Manta Rays. If you're going to worry about something pick a real cause. Oggy Bleacher's fate is already sealed. He only wants to make a grand exit.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Cute kid becomes town menace...


In the toes of my left foot is a dandelion. Those very same toes are now crippled hopelessly by arthritis. Coincidence?

Bike week comparison 1978-2010

Halloween 1977


.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Chilean Miners are Free. Oggy contines to be trapped.
I continue to be disillusioned by life. I don't understand what any of this mad dash for copper or Ikea furniture of Dr. Suess boxer shorts means. Attitude will carry a man over many waves. But does that contradict the importance of the waves? And what is the point of raising children to consume and produce? What goal are we pursuing? I'd like to play more and better guitar. It's something that has instant results and your playing will reflect your work. But each day at the mine has me praying that someone else will rescue me in a steel tube with a J. Carruthers guitar.
I am committed to going to Labrador as soon as the van is fit to drive there. No more excuses. This is a trip that is easy to avoid and for that reason only the hardiest souls make it there. You have to be driven or drive yourself, be your own navigator and patron. Make the trip. The arctic wolf is threatened and my goal is to learn more about this animal while there is still a chance.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
August, 1967

Newly married couple moves from New England to New Mexico in 1966 or 1967. Buys a concrete house with concrete walls and proceeds to have a porch built. It's the American Dream. The woman above is 25 years old in the picture, partly excited about moving out of New Hampshire but a little disillusioned with the suburbs of a growing New Mexico city. Is this all there is? Her husband is working at a military base which leaves her time to ponder her life as a stay at home something. There are no children yet but that seems to be the obvious plan. Why have children? Everyone else seems to be doing it. Did she marry out of custom or as a way out? Hard to tell from her expression.
She was born in Vermont in 1942, and grew up in Durham, New Hampshire going to school in what we might think was a Leave It To Beaver world but as anyone will tell you was filled with drama and intrigue as all eras are. Her older sister took JFK's challenge and joined the Peace Corp so during high school and college she and her parents read about exciting locations and cultural exchange in hand written letters delivered by the mailman in the cold as their white breath co-mingled in the airspace near the front porch.
"Another letter from Egypt. Joanie sure gets around," comments the mailman.
"Want to come in for a nip," my grandfather says with a wink. He wasn't a drinker but Vermont natives knew an offer warmed the heart as much as the drink itself.
"No," responds the mailman. "Lots of mail yet to deliver." And he moves down the snowy path, past the gigantic cars my grandfather never stopped driving. My mother and her parents would then read the letter by the wood stove and my mother would fantasize about leaving New England herself one day.
So, here she was in her own home, purchased for maybe $5 or $7 grand in a big dry and hot southwestern state. This could, she realized, never change. She could be content here as the the older Mexican women who shuffled on worn feet from their cleaning jobs at the mansions nearby. The nearby cave dwellings of Indians suggest that people clung to their habitats and the shine from the wedding crystal was beginning to wear off. What did she really want from life? Was it enough to make flowers out of plastic to glue to the concrete walls because hanging a picture involved drilling a hole? And the heat dried out all her flowers. Where were the lilacs of New Hampshire? Where were the colors of fall? Where were the bubbling brooks and icicles? Replaced by adobe and cowboys and Navajo rugs and fake turquoise jewelry.
Vermont natives in 1950 did not fall under the spell of false Hollywood emotions. This picture is evidence that if you asked her to pause and look at the camera then that's what she would do. Unlike us media whores today, she didn't look at every picture as a "Kodak Moment" or something that would eventually be submitted to a beauty pageant or end up on the Internet.
I never saw my grandmother or grandfather ham it up for any photograph but in real life they talked and joked like the Honeymooners. My mother's father told woodchuck rhymes and Vermont humor involving wooden nickles and yellow snow. The fact he had told a joke before never prevented him from telling it again. And he liked to steal my nose and hold it in his hand, something I bet he did with my mother when she was young.
What does this picture say to me? It says that my mother was her own woman, not out to impress anyone with her charm or disguise her feelings behind a rouge of happiness. If you've ever lived in New Mexico then you'll know that only in America would anyone voluntarily decide to move there. It is desolate, waterless, dry and unchanging. Wagon tracks from the westward expansion still criss cross the flat lands. Why would anyone live there? Charm, as Edward Abbey writes, can only be found in the smallest details of the desert; the cactus flower that blooms once a year, the stealthy scorpion and rattlesnake, the flitting fly catcher birds, the lizard mentality of living in a habitat without water are all the elements you can attend to.
Vermont natives are people of the earth. My mother, as honest as a train track is straight, loved flowers and plants and gardening as my grandmother did. Farming and gardening give back exactly what you give and anything that hints of fraud like trading stocks and flipping houses or phony salesmanship is demonic to those born in Vermont. In 1967, the place to be was not central New Mexico where the race to the moon, the summer of love, the communist threat, Muhammad Ali's efforts to avoid the draft, the Rolling Stones, the Vietnam war and most current events were not pertinent. The things that most interested New Mexico citizens was the weather, the humidity, gas prices, air conditioning, and golf course conditions. The military was testing nuclear weapons but that was in Arizona and California. Sandia Laboratories where her husband worked quietly produced things like diamond drill bits and passenger tire formulas and anti-tank armor. Nanotech, military, energy, bio-chemical, space technology: these are the fields Sandia works with. When a battery that lasts a ridiculously long time and is light as a feather and recharged by body heat is produced the chances are it will come from Sandia Laboratories. None of this impressed the practical woman in the red dress who came from Vermont with a suitcase full of home made dresses and probably a single color of lipstick. She didn't wear ear rings and isn't wearing a necklace in the picture though the dress certainly begs for some ornament. That wasn't her style. Though she is wearing lip stick in the picture it wasn't long before she grew her hair out and wore peasant shirts, painted walls in high hip jeans and ceased to wear any cosmetics at all.
She took a risk by leaving New England but she knew the world was bigger than Oyster River, bigger than Boston and bigger than the United States. She'd go one to live in many countries and her sons would travel the world with her blood in them, carrying the same cosmetic free expression.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
1976
Kids, this was taken for our country's bicentennial, July 1976. I don't think it will see a tricentennial so take a long look. And I know I won't see 2076 so this is it. This was the future, bright and proud, leafy green and growing strong in the New England tradition. God bless America. I am proudly wearing my american flag pants that my mother probably made herself. My brother is the taller one in his Red White and Blue shirt. Please do not comment on our hair cuts but admire quietly the innocence and promise of this moment.

Another snapshot into the past. I would guess this is an Easter Egg hunt in April of 1976. We were not concerned with color coordination at that time. Maybe these were our Pajamas with red slippers and I insisted on wearing plastic cowboy boots with my lime green pants tucked in. My brother's shirt has some kind of farm equipment on it and the house which would soon be painted red and the Indian shutters black, is now a gross beige. That black bronze eagle on our front screen door is classic. Also classic is a tree directly in front of the door. The house was on a quarter acre with no neighbors. Icicles hung long from the roof.

I return to Sanford searching for these moments like Charles Foster Kane returning to his storage locker looking for his wooden sled. The moose calls and dog fights and heartbreaks of the world leave me full of experiences to pass on and a persepective to share but don't they all eventually reduce down to this picture of security and essential bonding? And where is that in my life now? Non existent. I cough myself awake in a Walmart parking lot and work for 11 hours with fiber optic wire. Humanity has been banished from my life and the rainbow afghan of affection has unraveled with time and distance and resentment. I wrote a note to myself this afternoon as the wire crimping hypnotized me:
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
What day is it?
For pre-Halloween I dressed up as an aging, crippled hippie for our trip to Mardsens, where a man's hat said, "Nuke their ass, take their gas." Simple and to the point. Got band aids for my hemorrhaging thumb that has bled for four consecutive days. Wonder why I'm pale and thin? Chronic internal and external bleeding. Madbury Corn eaten from the worm's mouth. 11 hours of crimping a day under a wooden slab.
In van news (and thus news of my wolf expedition) a mechanic fixed the toe and is working on finding the adapters to fix the caster and camber. This involves straightning the twin I bean suspension. That's the only option and I will invest in this improvement as the two old mechanics marveled at the condition of the van. I'm proud and want to go to the lair of the wolf on a straight course and not swerving as I do down the road. I will mention that NTB tires is truly useless as they didn't even manage to align the toe of the tires. Nothing. I have to go back there after the I beams get straigtened and get them to replace the useless warped tires they sold me. Nothing has gone right since I brought it there proving that experience will prevail of glossy corporate marketing banners and also that a bad mechanic will do more harm than good. I knew this already but have a habit of falling into the same hole over and over.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Alignment issues
And I am the insane one?
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Wolves Save Man
With the wolves gone how will we learn how to live?
Monday, October 4, 2010
Baldface
While it was very nice to view from the bald slopes of the mountain, fall foliage never comes out right in pictures so here's a simple flower (my mom says it is a morning glory) near the Mt. Hope cemetery that lives up to its name. Hopeful of life and spring eternal.
Regarding the hike up South Baldface Mountain...
At what point did I know I was in trouble?
It was when I jarred my spine as I fell into a ditch for the second time.
Imagine pitch blackness in the dark Maine forest, a few star constellations far above through the foliage. Silence surrounds you except for the far off sound of a river or brook. You are on the Slippery Brook Trail, descending from the top of South Baldface, rushing because you foolishly left the seacoast too late and now have to make up time before your cell phone dies. Why is your cell phone important? Because you neglected to bring your headlamp and are on your knees searching for traces of the trail in the dark, fumbling down miles of rock and mud looking for some sign of the other trail to the parking lot.
Go ahead and get your catcalls out now because you will be eating your words in a little while. I'm an idiot but not for the reasons you think. It's a hiker's scenario that no one likes to talk about. When you find yourself nearly lost on a strange trail in the dark and you are wet from sweat from a nearly vertical climb to the top and freezing winds stealing your warmth, and you don't know where you are and you are alone...what do you do? Read on and find out.
I thought the trail was shorter but it just kept going on and on as the dusk turned into night and the squirrels slept and the stars came out in their humbling millions. At this point, for the first time in many months, I did not think about my many failures as a man and mistakes with women who might have loved me or might have been loved by me or career paths that are attractive but for the ecological distaste and my father's shortcomings and mother's indifference, etc. No. I thought only of survival. So much that I didn't even think to take a picture of my sweaty, hopeless face as I blundered, yes, blundered down the trail with only the dim flicker of my cell phone illuminating merely two feet in front of me so that to find the trail markers on the tree I had to shine the light directly on the trunk of every tree I passed and then jogged to the next area where I wasn't sure it was the trail or now. Oh, this was bad. The six bars of my cell phone battery became five. Then four. I was moving too slow now after my two old man knees matched the old man of the mountain and crumbled far up on the summit like my grandfather whose knees were shorn from him and replaced with plastic.
Ok, Oggy, think. You have to make it out alive. Everyone would just love to write your obituary as being lost in the wild like that kid McCandless they always compare you with. But you are different. You have passed the extremist test and now just want to make it back to your cabin on wheels. No time to eat and carefully sipping water while walking because every second the cell phone is on brings you closer to complete darkness and absolutely no way of getting out tonight. IS that serious? The Temp was around 45-50. Maybe colder but no blanket or sweater or even a change of socks. Nothing but your damp Arcade Championship t-shirt and '70s era jeans. At least the screws in your boots are holding the soles together.
So, I blundered further and with each trail marker I felt I was defeating death because this was like finding a condom in the pitch blackness of your backseat while sucking your lover's perfumed neck and one-handed unlatching that damn double hooked bra while kicking your shoes off. This took all my skills as a navigator and trail walker and numerous times I lost the trail (remember in the fall the leaves covered the earth and made everything look untrodden) and ended up snagged on a branch and had to retrace my steps to a trail marker and continue forward.
Now, Slippery Brook trail does not go to the parking lot. Slippery brook trail crosses the trail that gets to the parking lot and I knew I would never see the signs since my cell phone only cast a half a candle worth of light in front of my left hand.
Flashback to me driving north..."Oggy, remember to put your headlamp in your backpack. It's late and as long as you have a flashlight then you can get to the summit and down. But if you forget...forget...if you could forget Elena and just hike for ten minutes then you'll be fine, but she has to always perch on the cornerstone of your mind and not give you a moment's peace. I'm insane if I think we could be together. That's her whole plan to set you up so you devote yourself to her and then she can break your heart. That's what you have to forget. Forget Elena's dark eyes and her curly hair and her love of literature and her bewitching smile...forget everything. That damn crimping factory has driven you insane...Look at those red leaves. So pretty. AS pretty as Elena's hands on your knee, her...damn it! Stop thinking of her! Ok, As soon as you get to the parking lot you need to put the sushi in the backpack and go. The day is fading fast..."
Flash forward to myself running into a tree and falling to the side into a muddy trough.
"Oh, fucking hell!" as I wipe the sweat from my eyes.
Onward through the night, would the trail never end? I couldn't hear any cars or voices, only the wheezing coming from my fiberglass lungs. But I managed to stay on the trail until the final ultimate obstacle. I was stopped in my tracks by a narrow but deep river. What the hell. My instincts told me the trail crossed this brook and continued on the other side, but where? I couldn't see the trail markers with the weak cell phone flickering (two bars of battery left!)
How the hell am I going to cross this river in the dark using a cell phone for light? Very carefully.
I kneeled closer to the river with the cell phone and could only find one or two passable areas. The sound of the water bubbling over the rocks drowned out all my thoughts as I stepped onto a rock that instantly turned and left me on my knees in the ice cold water!
"Fucking hell!"
But I raised the beacon of cell phone technology to the sky to keep it dry and stood up and jumped onto a log that was as wet as an otter's asshole. I clung to it with one hand reaching forward with the light, hoping to see a trail marker. (One bar of battery left) only to find nothing. Just trees. I scrambled over the log and onto dry land and hunted up and down for a sign of a trail. Nothing. Just leaves piled on leaves, all blue in the white light of my cell phone. I stumbled down a fox hole and over a log cutting my face on branch. Where was the trail! I didn't want to die out there in the forest! I hunted and could not find it and more importantly was becoming disoriented in the dark. Was the river on my left or right. It should be on my right facing down. But which way was down? I was in a hole. Now, where was the original trail? Fuck. I had crossed the river and could not get back to the last trail marker. Now I was very close to being seriously lost in the dark with one bar of battery left.
I did not panic. They tell you not to panic but advice like that is useless. Either you will panic or you won't. I did not panic. I considered my option. I was about to become completely engulfed in darkness near a strong current brook not on a trail on the side of Baldfaced Mountain. The temperature would make life misery for (I checked the clock on my cell phone) the next 11 hours. I'd probably survive based on the fact I had sushi and a scarf and my wool hat. Yes, I was wet and already shivering from sweaty shirt but I would probably live. But, the survivalist inside me wanted to find a way off the mountain as soon as possible. I didn't want to wait for dawn. Maybe the trail took an abrupt right turn at the river and didn't cross it at all. So, I recrossed the river and managed to find the original trail marker. Then I thought I found another trail marker but it turned out to be a rectangular splotch of fungus. Oh, what would become of Oggy? Here's a picture taken when I thought I had all the time in the world. It was freezing on the summit and Gordon's windbreaker was all that kept me from dying.
I hunted up and down the other side of the brook for the trail but couldn't find it. Misery! But I knew it would be on the other side so again I crossed the water with one hand holding the cell phone over the rocks I was trying to step on and my walking stick keeping me steady with the other. Man, I crossed that river three times looking for the trail but I could not find any trace of it or any trail marker. I ended up on the original side of the trail under the last trail marker as my cell phone dimmed to the point I couldn't see anything. This was the dying light of Oggy's last lunatic parade. Curses! Everyone was right, I had brought my own deadly destiny to myself, I'd run my last mile, hiked my last peak. I'd freeze to death on this trail without knowing where the next trail marker was.
My options were not attractive. I could:
1) Blunder down the river in the dark, keeping it always on my left until I found the route 113 somewhere down below...hopefully.
2) Blunder across the river again and just go in the direction of what I thought might be the trail to the parking lot. Ha~! I considered this pure insanity because I couldn't walk five feet without falling on the rocky terrain. I would have to crawl for two miles in a perfect line to my van and most likely I would crawl for 11 hours in the wrong direction.
3) Curl up in a ball and watch my breath for 11 hours.
As my cell phone died completely I decided to look in my pack for an apple or a piece of sushi and cheese and it was at that very moment that I realized something...
At the bottom of my pack, where it had stayed since I removed it from my bicycle in Venice, CA, was my bicycle headlight, an incredibly bright halogen flashlight that I'd stashed there for...emergencies! How could I have forgotten~!
Salvation!
I plunged my hand into the pack, dug past an extra pair of sneakers, an old bus card from Santa Monica, a blues harmonica, a combination lock, a forgotten emergency space blanket (that would've come in handy) and found my flashlight. Would it work after all these months?
Let there be light! I turned it on and instantly flashed it across the river and found a trail marker about seven feet up where I'd never look for it. I literally stood up with my arms raised in triumph. No McCandless destiny for me, not this time. And there was a neat row of rocks across the river that I hadn't seen before. I hoped across and began to job downhill because I knew the batteries would be my only hope. I flew like a deer possessed, like father Elk, like the elder Bison down the hill, skipping over roots, following the trail markers painted on trees like the yellow brick road to my van. It was still a long way to the trail intersection but once I found it I knew I was home. My knees were sore and my pants wet but I crossed the empty street with the sky full of constellations and felt a moment of peace as my fate once more blended into the comfortable known.
So, I'm an idiot for forgetting the headlamp. Yes. But somewhere in my mind I had forgotten it because I knew I had the best flashlight I could want already in my backpack. So I'm an idiot for forgetting that I had packed my flashlight already. The lesson is to be prepared. And if you aren't prepared at least know what you are carrying!
Visited the old homestead in Sanford. See video for more details. The van and Mt. Hope.
Somehow found time to hike Mt. Agementicus on the way south. My soul migrated with the speckled hawks to their oily home to the south. Returning to the shackles of ion implanters is a rusty stake in my heart.