Child Support?

My heart dropped when I read this email. My head went into overdrive as I wondered if my late night carousing had caught up with me.


I am sure your attorney already provided you with this information but you chose not to make the change.

Mail child support to

K. XXXXXX
XXX Black Point Meadows
Scarborough, ME XXXX

Attached are passport information that you need to have notarized and return to me. If you refuse or choose not to provide a reason as to why.


K. XXXX,
Maine Pretrial Services


Then I realized this was all a case of mistaken identity. Some other Oggy Bleacher knocked up the wrong lady.
Phew!

But biology has been on my mind lately. I think passing on genes has something to do with procreating, but I think that has become sort of irrelevant with 7 billion people. The species, if you care about it surviving, is doing ok. So, why have kids? The easy answer is sex. It's accidental. Mexicans don't generally use birth control and by 22 most women are pregnant. Their healthiest eggs are fertilized, they are young enough to deal with the kid or kids. I saw very very few disabled Mexicans and I'll bet this young birth age has something to do with it. Humans are wired to reproduce when we are around 17-20 years old. By the time a Mexican lady is 33 years old she has two teenage kids. That makes sense to me. If it weren't for birth control I'd have numerous lawyers from numerous states and countries emailing me nasty letters for child support I can't afford.

So, the act of sex is enough to quench my desire to reproduce? Not completely. Because I think there is something else going on and that only becomes apparent when you get old and gray and decrepit like myself. That thing is being able to see someone with genetically inherited eyes and hair (is anything as beautiful the hair of a child?) and skin and legs running and playing LIKE YOU ONCE DID. This becomes almost voyeurism but it is a kind of vicarious youth. You are ALMOST living your youth again. You can watch and enjoy a kid do things that your broken knees and bad eyesight will not allow you to do. And believe me, when you get old and your chestnut hair that was once the envy of all begins to gray or fall out then you will do almost anything to recapture that feeling of eternity youth affords. Even having sex with someone you don't really like so you can have a kid you can't afford and set him or her loose on society and enjoy the reflection back on your youth with a slightly different setting but mostly similar routines and dramas. It's pretty selfish but has managed to keep people on the planet for almost a million years.
I think that's what drives a species to reproduce beyond the carrying capacity of the environment. In a species like the wolf, the yearlings, ( the one year old animals (arctic wolves have life spans of a decade)) definitely leave the pack. There is absolutely no vicarious living for wolves. In fact, a mother one year will be chased out of the pack a year later but the new breeding female, sometimes her own daughter. There is no love lost with wolves. But with humans, this petty and nostalgic and dreamy hairless chimp, we want to relive something that was so pleasant and so we provide ourselves with kids to watch and care for long after the kids are actually mature enough to be chased from the den. I mean, 18 years? Are you kidding? I think I was chomping at the bit to leave town when I was 12. But the schools and family forced me to stay another 6 years to properly destroy me. Or was it they wanted to watch me and so I don't trust people who actually have nothing to offer me but pretend to offer me something when they are really reliving their wasted youth?

This is what I pondered when I went 1000 ft in the ground to tour the Churchill Falls hydroelectric plant. Let me tell you that the electricity of Canada WAS HARD WON. I mean, HARD HARD WON. The least of the worries was diverting water from a magnificently gigantic churchill river and falls (they are now a trickle in a huge gorge for a mile or two). No, the hard part was engineering 11 generators and turbines and transistors 100 feet in solid rock. I was real proud of my keyboard fix until I saw what was going on underground. Now I'm humbled. All the electricity I've used for two days is from this dam. Clean. Except for the diversion of the water and the resources used to manufacture the components and copper wire and the control stations. I wonder if the Piscataqua river will one day have a moving arm generator to harness the power of the water through the channel?
Gotta move on now. You engineers get working on those plans.

,MNBVCXZ

I finally found the problem. Didn't Edison say that success is built on failure? Well, I failed multiple times yesterday to fix this keyboard. The map below is the bottom membrane of the keyboard. The bottom is the space bar and the next level was the one not working. Why? Well, see the screw hole in the bottom right hand corner? That had some rust on it and that rust affected the graphite or carbon circuit. That alone was a eureka moment for me huddled in my van with the wind blowing outside Churchill falls. But how to fix it? I videoed several attempts involving dielectric spark plug grease pencils and finally, in a stroke of genius and creativity that has my step a stone lighter than it was yesterday, I cut a piece of circuit from the redundant number pad and glued it over the damaged circuit only barely covering half the center dot since one half worked and the other was corrupt. But glue isn't a conductive, right? So I didn't glue the circuit, I only glued along the edge to keep the bridge in place, then I cut a piece of surgical rubber off a guitar wall hanger and glued that on top of the bridge so when I screwed it all together the rubber would press down and bridge the circuit. It was only that one dot that was bad. It's the one where the comma is and since that is where the rubber shim now sits sometimes the comma is stubborn and I'm not going to go back and fix it, dig?
Let this be recorded in the history of bush engineering as maybe the most delicate repair ever. Allen's transmission repair on his sailboat when an internal bolt sheared off in Panama still stands as the most labor intensive and complicated fix but I challenge anyone to fix a computer keyboard in wild Labrador with super glue, nose hair scissors and a guitar hanger.


Just because I can't get enough of seeing myself in print.



Yes, I know I'm not represented as Oggy Bleacher from the future but despite my rehearsals when it came down to the gun I could not say it. The whole point is to have it on video and this would require my getting the tripod out starting the camcorder and asking a reporter to hang out in the rain while I don my silk shirt and 70s polyester bell bottoms so I could state I'm from the future and looking for the arctic wolf. Not only would the reporter not hang around or give my mission actual coverage but she'd call the police and I wouldn't get anything on film. That's why this whole thing needed a cameraman so I didn't do it all myself but because the world is full of cowards and excuse makers who would rather sit in front of their computers and television watching spooks dance in shadow ecstasy I am alone in Labrador and the documentary on a time-traveler is nearly impossible to make at the same time as I am fixing computers.
I love typing again. My venomous resentment toward the world is so much easier to communicate with ten fingers than with the single letter entry method.

wolf man

The computer keyboard front has seen some advances and some retreats. I'm at the point with computers and automobiles where I can take it apart and put it back together without breaking anything but I might not fix anything either.

Somewhere in this maze something is preventing the lower row of keys from working. "ZXCVBNM<" all of those keys fail to work. The rest of the keys work.

I plugged it into this public computer in Churchill Falls Library and the same keys didn't work so it isn't my computer. But I can type now at least and try to appease my eager fans. "What is Oggy up to? Where is Oggy?" The fan mail is probably piling up at my door in NH.

Well, this is the big land. Alaska is the western Labrador, not the other way around. No Canadian wants to hear Labrador called the eastern Alaska. The Viking found this place first.

I found so much firewood here that I blazed a fire that almost melted my camper top. Wouldn't that've been funny?

The other day I was picking litter up in the parking lot where I camped, as is my habit, when a reporter dropped by and found my arctic wolf awareness tour worth publishing. This is a big step in the right direction for wolf health. The Aurora is Labrador City's main paper, keeping people up to date on the ore industry.

There's a picture of the front page with my transient wolf costume in full display. I'm under the news about an iron ore shipping president and an environmental assessment for new ore drilling.

Lana, the reporter pictured below awarding me with a paper, will probably lose her job for highlighting a hippie's insane quest to save the arctic wolf when the arctic is exactly where all the big drilling companies have their eyes set. She's probably getting mysterious calls right now saying, "One more 'hippie does good' article and you'll be writing obituaries in Nunavut."

But that's what the whole wolf quest is about, speaking truth to power. And when the news includes a wolf enthusiast traveling through Labrador City to spread the news that the arctic wolf is imperiled then that goes in the paper with the discovery of new oil deposits in the arctic. Thanks to Lana for her integrity! Good luck in Nunavut!

the aurora newspaper. The aurora is not a free paper though you might be able to get a preview subscription. You've all read the goals of my quest before but it's interesting to see them in a newspaper. I stopped to get gas on the way out of town and the boy at the pump said, "You were in the paper." I'm not sure if the response would be positive or reactive. A town based on resources like ore is like a town based on oil. Any suggestion that animals are in fact effected by human occupancy of Earth could be taken as a slight. But I know frontier towns and it's hard living under the best of circumstances so making it even harder by not stepping on a Lemming nest is sort of out of the question. But I moved on.

This big truck was in Fermont, Quebec. I wanted to capture the scale of this monster but ended up creating an optical illusion. It's a big truck. I was in Fermont for the solstice night hike up Mont Severson. Quebec folks love a hike like Mexicans love dancing. So, we went out with headlamps to welcome in the turning of the earth in the celestial orbit with rain in our faces. Sun up at about 3:30am. They had a fire going for our arrival and soup. Merci beaucoup, Fermont!

Lastly, this is a walleyed, landlocked salmon that weighed as much as a small baby. A Labrador fisher gave it to me and I happened to have some butter so I did the best I could with a gigantic fish. How would you prepare this on a wood stove inside a van? I cut the head off, cut the tail off so it fit in the pan, put half a stick of butter in there and grilled it until I could filet the meat off the spine with a knife. Then I grilled the meat for another 30 minutes, slowly roasting it in butter and salt and when it was all done I had the best meal in weeks. A few rib bones were left to spit out but I didn't do bad for a hippie from Los Angeles. That was a secret location on the way to Churchill Falls that I can't give away because it's too ideal.

I do want to add that the van's ignition timing seems slightly off. Either that or a hundred other symptoms could be causing a slight erratic idle and a sluggish shift from first to second gear. It's only after countless miles do I notice every change in performance. This far from a mosquito free garage I take everything into account. Labrador City garages were booked up until August so it makes my choice easy. I either fix everything myself or it doesn't get fixed. I need a timing light and the emissions specs for a 1969 E200, specifically the idle speed and timing details. I think it could be a timing issue or a vacuum leak in the intake manifold or a carb adjustment or even old spark plug wires. This is on my mind like a bad tick.

I drove from Labrador City without problem but if you are a praying person then pray to the transmission gods to safely see me back to the small land.

Sunlight

this is a mountain lion tracking a moose. i had bug spray as defense.


Still looking for northern lights. keyboard is really broken. basically texting this post with on screen keyboard. I...w...e...n...t l...o...o...k...i...n...g...f...o...r...w...o...l...v...e...s. Tedious. everything breaks.
Trust has been a theme to ponder. is it a substitute for love? wolf pack dynamics make sense to me. but when human alpha males are movie stars and we regurgitate $11 to see them fake kiss dominant females then a funk envelopes my orphaned soul. as a submissive member of this fractured species i am lost.

why did the partridge run from oggy? it was injured I think and so is my back.



kids in the library here play a computer game where an ore truck delivers trucks of pellets over a bumpy road.

Exploring Labrador City

I hiked a long way to get a shot of Labrador City and when I get to the peak after miles of bushwacking and crossing streams and feeling I was being tracked by a mountain lion and getting lost and hurting my back and falling in a ravine, I get to the top and the clouds move in and I get a picture of fog. And my camera got wet. Have not seen my shadow in five days. Since Quebec City.


This has to be for night skiing but I didn't see many lights. and the ski lift is totally falling apart. I think it is for rugged skiers.


This was a very tame Canadian Wolf. Hardly even moved.
I learned a lot about the iron ore mines and the hydro electric plants up here.



II seem to be having computer problems. Keyboard___is___broken. must use on-screen keyboard.
more pics

will box up and send this skidoo to the chicken farmer so he can post on craigslist "Vintage snowmobile. Needs work. Best Offer"

wait, the keyboard is working now. odd. must clean it. or might be the different frequency of electricity that is messing with it. I am one hour earlier than east coast folks. And they speak English now which is a relief because I'm out of money and need work.

I went for a long hike around the mountains to find that open country I had heard about.






I should mention the van is running good. time for a shower at city hall. I can feel my brain being cleaned by the wilderness.

Labrador City

Did I remember to check the electrolyte level in my batteries? No. Would that oversight eventually bite me in the ass? Yes. Would it bite me in the ass at the worst possible most remote location between Nowhere and Dead Meat? Oh, yes.



That's the tailpipe and a piece of the exhaust inside my van.

Here I am troubleshooting the battery problem on the tundra. That telephone is the nearest one for 200km so I decided to stop there and do my work. That work was fruitless but the situation was getting desperate. One battery, the main one, was holding no charge and because it couldn't even give me 3 volts the axillary battery would not automatically kick in. This meant I had to jump start the van using cables from the cabin through the window and out to the main battery. Because the exhaust had fallen apart somewhere 200 km back in the taiga, I was forced to drive with the windows down as the cabin was filled with exhaust smoke, except for the smoke that was heating up the fuel tank to dangerous levels.
It was a few hours of tense driving in 100km of twisty with the windows down, rain pouring in, smoke pouring out, unable to stop because I had to jump start the battery with my one remaining battery and I had no idea how long that would work...and I had already shorted out fuses trying to use the deep cell marine battery as a main battery. It was truly Labrador or Bust.
Can you count the wildlife in this picture? Perfectly camouflaged. I asked two French Canadian hikers in the Mont Groulx park where we met what it was. I thought it was a wild chicken. Then it flew like a turkey. But it sort of looked like ptarmigan from Alaska. Turns out we agree it was a Partridge. I didn't get a picture of them. We were all 40 years old and destined to meet on the edge of the forest.

All this adds up to an adventure to get here:


Labrador City's auto parts stores now know me by first name as I required all kinds of attention to set things right again. My dead battery was 6 years old. Replaced it. The tailpipe could only receive a replacement flex pipe that will last another 6 months before rotting out like my teeth.
These repairs are not part of the wolf expedition but for the time they enable the wolf expedition. I can't lose sight of that. They are here.

I went for a wolf sighting hike but freaked myself out because I was in an uninhabited area as big as New Hampshire and wolves and bears, if I saw them, could have their way with me. They'd probably be rabid. I was scared of the Partridge. And which way was the van?

I heard the term "Open Country" for the first time since Alaska. It's used to describe park land that has no trails. I can thank the Labrador City McDonalds (still horrible food) for the Internet access but I thank the Vikings for finding this continent and setting in motion the chain of events that led to a hippie fixing his exhaust pipe in the pouring rain in a Walmart parking lot.
If the weather ever clears up I might still see the Northern Lights. We get darkness from 10pm to 5 so it's possible.

Light of Love

Here`s the van as an eye sore at «Quebec »City.


and here`s the author at Montmorency Falls.When I first arrived in Quebec City I tried to be discreet but I stalled in front of a row of outdoor beer gardens and 200 people stopped to stare at the coal powered van and the hippie driving it. Au Cotoure dressed women with flawless skin marveled. I nodded and prayed the next song on my ipod would be quiet but it was `the light of love; by rick springfield. the crowds were aghast and didn`t need to look at my license plate to know I was an American.

Goblins of Self Doubt

When they say "You will find out what kind of man you are." this is the road that they are talking about.
The story of the man who returns to Nature for 40 days and emerges renewed and clean is from the bible. I want to be cleansed by nature but this trip is more like "Heart of Darkness" as layers of civility are shed the further north I go. OR are they the same story? As one obstacle is overcome another comes along that is even more primitive. The cars show more signs of abuse. The warning signs grow less frequent. The dangers grow more extreme. The propaganda that Oggy hates is but a myth here. He is the myth, the legend of a man from the south looking for healing in a box but there is no shaman booth at Walmart.
Did I really not bring a spare water pump? No, but I have a Lionel Richie songbook. That was smart.
But I wonder if not now then it is never. The wolf will not wait as the ice that once promoted diversity melts. And if I am saving the van for some later adventure then what exactly would that be? Why not do it now.
No, the long awaited showdown with my fears has come. The bridge has been burned. There is no return trip for the same man. He either dies or another man exits the skin of the former...this steel shell pings the water and the hail and the angry bees fly in to sting Oggy skin.
There are few options for communication beyond here. I was lucky to find this one in Baie Comeau, although it is very populated. Beyond this lie wolves and mermaids.

Quebec and beyond

Typing skills on these French computers is weak. But that means I made it. No video. No pictures. $10 per hour internet equals no updates. Quebec city was a battlefield for years. Today it is a playground and music studio. What will tomorrow bring.

Chocolate croissants...and arctic wolves.

Man on the mountain

It's a long way to Canada from here...

Kearsarge

Found these rare bud light bottles in the forest. maybe artifacts from the Algonquin tribe?

Mon nom est Oggy. Je Suis de l'avenir

If there is anyone who can speak French I'll totally buy all the gas if you can get us to Labrador.



"Je cherche le loup arctique, parce que leur habitat est de fusion."

Borat had it a little easier since he could actually speak English. Try playing a prank in a language you really don't understand.

Gadget Repair

Departure is delayed until I repair my music console. In an effort to minimize the amount of copper and lithium that is released into the atmosphere I'm repairing a broken battery by soldering the ground wire back onto the battery control board. Cheap replacement batteries from China cause me more problems than they are worth and further the insane advance to doomsday. Eventually, this ipod will be hard wired into my van's 12v system. It will run off of energy created when I use my feet as brakes. The heat will be transferred to the power grid and excess will be sold to the coal company.

Leaving

Fragments of batik fabric sewn by Chinese factory workers.
Threads of childhood extend into the present despite efforts to sever all connection
The dreams arrive in the broken slumber calling lovers to the bedside
The bearded prophet's shiny beard deflects the sun's rays.
Humanity is a mob mentality that pushes forward against all advice.
Wear your best vest for the tragic funeral. Bury the dead with leaves from a pile of Autumn
the pale make room for the tan.
The van rocks down the highway.

Tennis Serves From Man with Iron Spine

It's not my fault a teenage girl is on the next court playing tennis. That was a coincidence so don't get any ideas. This was about recording and studying my service game to improve my tennis play.
What I learned is that my spine looks as bad as it feels. I get up every morning and put a stick in my mouth to tolerate the pain of movement. By noon I can move and by 4pm I am crippled again. Only heavy doses of Pink Floyd keep me alive and only teenage girls with excellent two handed backhands keep me returning to the tennis court.

Lightning Flash

Nothing special except I was only out there for ten seconds and the lightning toasted my bread. If I had been hit this video would've been much better. I wouldn't make a good combat photographer. Watching this again I see the lightning and thunder are on top of each other. that bolt was the closest of the whole storm and it happened in that one second I was peeking around the roof. Like I timed it.

Ray Bryant RIP

I thought Oscar Peterson was the pinnacle of soulful piano improv and then I was stuck in traffic in Boston listening to a concert by Ray Bryant and everyone was honking at me because I was sitting there with my mouth catching flies as this roar of blue notes was coming at me uncontrollably and attacking my brain leaving me worn by the heartache of the ages. Oh, Time, you Thief of Lives, you rob the old to give to the young!

Ray Bryant playing a grand piano with conviction. He was a musical internet before computers, literally growing up with 5o years of music, spreading the music, composing music, a repository of musical traditions and we are losing that because people don't need to learn anything since the internet remembers it for them. There was a time when the chords to Ain't Misbehaving were known only to a select group of holy musicians. They had a big responsibility that Steve Jobs has made redundant.

His catalog is gigantic so get busy listening to his music. He played "Georgia On My Mind" and it was like I'd never heard it before.

There is advertising before the video because someone disrespects Ray Bryant's talent and wants to make 5 cents off his stride piano runs. I profit only in proximity to this master. Ain't it true that everyone gets rich off the black man's heart body and soul except the black man? I'm still grateful for the chance to see him play here and the driven repeated notes at :27 almost made me drive off of Storrow Drive into the Charles River. He should've had a personal videographer follow him around everywhere. His music should be played in tents to heal the sick. Listen! This music isn't redundant.


Ray Bryant - Blues No. 6 by Delta_Mike

Final chance for hippie to ignore your advice

The train is about to depart the station. My work on the seacoast is finished. I'm only burning through savings by supporting Philbrick's Fresh Market produce manager's ludicrous prices by staying here. I was tempted to take a job delivering car parts for Napa but one must have priorities. There are several organic farm internships I'm interested in more over in Maine and Vermont. These are all alternate plans to my wolf expedition. I have enough money to survive. How far north I will go remains to be seen. There are limits to everything and I recently read that the entire 1300 mile road to Happy Valley is gravel with intermittent pavement. That means dust and broken windshields and broken headlights. I need to get a headlight at a junk yard as a spare. The trip up the Alaskan Highway was mostly gravel and packed dirt in 1989. Our windshield got smashed but we made it. This road into Labrador is less traveled but the trucks probably leave a wide wake. But that's what makes it special. It's not a road people drive often. And there is no other way to see those places for a few hundred dollars. So, the time is now.
This computer is slowly falling apart. The internet has surpassed the abilities of 448 Mb of ram. I can't edit a photo let alone a video. I don't see how I can post anything from Canada if there is no internet, no electricity and no video editing device. And I would prefer to adopt the lifestyle of my evangelical friend outside of Quebec City who ruled over his car scrap yard during the day and cut lumber at night and went to church on Sunday and killed chickens on Saturday to eat. The internet and it's legion of demons hold no sway over Msrs. LaChance. Considering the amount of influence we individually have over the internet it's relatively meaningless whether we interact with it or not...as far as the internet is concerned. Food and shelter are the two words I keep repeating to myself. If you can secure food and shelter than you are a fully functioning animal. Everything else is pure propaganda from the mini skirts and silk cravats to the spiderman underroos and eye liner and Kindle reading aids. It's all propaganda and cultural filigree.

So, I'll be taking my 1974 Vespa Ciao with me because the possibility of breaking down in the middle of the gravel wilderness makes me want to have an alternative. I'll ride that thing over muddy roads to find a water pump for the van. Or my butterfly wing cufflinks may take flight again and allow me to cliff dive from the ledge of my self loathing narcissism. The updraft of the wolf spirit will carry me home to the land of the muskox and snow rabbit.

Fracking Up

I'm determined to have my user name at exxonmobil blog revoked. They tried to sell fracking to me and this is what I have to say:


So, in the past few years hydraulic fracking has been developed, criticized, supported, halted, expanded, attacked, legitimized, slandered, studied and popularized and this is the final word on it? Natural Gas production companies will proceed because immediately following the invention of the technology no towns were destroyed by gigantic cave ins and no aquifers ignited spontaneously? The testing phase is complete? Well, congratulations. This sounds like a junkie who wakes up after his first binge and says, "See, it's safe."
It's ironic, the fact that you would lay your argument over the delicate shoulders of a single study in the UK on a brand new, frankly inconceivable, but obviously contentious practice, not only doesn't reassure me but makes me think you sold lead paint and asbestos siding in a previous occupation. "4 out of 5 Doctors smoke Chesterfields!"

Parliament's decision to proceed at full speed until something proves them wrong only perpetuates the cart before the horse paradigm that is both a noble human characteristic and a great flaw.
If ExxonMobil were studying the environmental effects of capturing natural gas 10 FEET UNDER MY GARAGE then I'd accept the UK study as reassurance. When the scale is somewhat larger then I expect 100% consensus on the part of everyone impacted by this method, which is everyone on the continent where it is practiced. The very fact this consensus is not required is of conspicuous relevance here and only emphasizes the importance of voluntary reassuring.

I'm very suspicious of widespread industrial methods that are innocent until proven guilty. Because everyone in the nation is not qualified to study hydraulic fracking, at least in my eyes, you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent to the least among us and right now any reasonable jury would find this fracking method scantily clad in legitimate and proportionately scaled study. "Not inherently dangerous?" So, a "process of creating fissures, or fractures, in underground formations" is safe? It sounds like it compromises the integrity of the earth directly beneath the gas recovery facilities. That sounds inherently dangerous. Try again. The stakes are indeed high for our nation, too high to be influenced by a single UK study. At the very least we should wait for the results of the New York and Pennsylvania studies that ARE PART OF THE 3 YEAR FRACKING MORATORIUMS in those states. That sounds reasonable considering what is at stake. I'll turn my thermostat on low for the next three years. I promise.

Window Regulator

Preparing my 1969 Super Van for travel involves replacing the window regulators that snapped as soon as I lowered the passenger window after 5 months. That little piece of plastic cost me more than my butterfly wing cuff links. But now I know I can roll the window down to breathe in the Labrador air and hear the howl of the arctic wolf.

Hipsters On the Loose

"You can't stop getting old but you can be immature as long as you want."

My Cufflinks Are Made From Butterfly Wings

It took a lot of work to say those words and tell the truth. A lot of work to sound completely insane. I found my 1950s vintage tuxedo shirt to use in the arctic wolf documentary and since it had french cuffs I had to buy some butterfly wing cuff links that will blow your mind. Of course that is a woodland pine tree scene painted backwards on the glass with the butterfly appendage as a background. This was not in the budget but I had no choice. Pictures will follow along with diagrams of my gut expanding due to Indian Food Buffet at the Kabob Factory and the frozen custard place in Amesbury.*

If I can get a laugh in a month because of my costume and accessories that improbably appear in the arctic I want you all to note that butterfly cuff links did not magically appear on the french cuffs of my 1950s tuxedo shirt. No, that involved some tact and deft skill and unrecoverable fracking gas...and it took the precious wings of delicate butterflies stripped naked and flightless by demons. And in case the folks at the dept. of interior didn't get the message, "the American people are jerking off their prides into the condoms of defeat."
whatever that means.

I feel good these days. Nothing is going my way but I feel focused and driven to my destined appointment with the imperiled wolf. I've even almost stopped thinking about the immortal beloved in Mexico. I'm almost free to write my book. I belong in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. Or maybe a pot farm. Somewhere I can work the land and fix small engines and play folk sings for people in rocking chairs. I know this. My quest to fix society is a fantasy but it is not a fantasy that I must pursue my own utopia in a land without internet or electricity. A land where money is not a substitute for trust.

My tuxedo shirt and butterfly wing cuff links deserve to be legends that become part of an Eskimo creation myth. I can not process the flaccid lack of ethics perpetrated by the frauds of modern information. The icloud network will render the PC obsolete because our pharaoh Steve Jobs has decreed it. And the copper of Argentina and the minerals of Alberta will co-mingle in his frog toe soup to create the semi-conductors that make that possible. Skyscrapers of data banks fracking the innocent sky as muskrats and wolverines scurry for shelter. I am merely another wolverine lost in the wilderness without the skills to survive. I volunteer for the night watch. My ruffled shirt will repel the armies of indifference and my butterfly wing cufflinks will deflect the demons of the dark.

*The custard shoppe in Amesbury doesn't sell any custard but they do have nice baby clothes.

Hippie's Vacation Usurped by Prolific Painter

If I were a lobster, the Downeasters would throw me back and shake their heads, "Lobstah sho ah furry an ugly these dayuhs."
If I were any thinner you could see through me. That sucks because I tried to put on weight for the trip to the arctic circle. Maybe it's my beard that makes me look thin.


"Look, I can see the spots I missed on the staircase from here!"



Shortly after this picture was taken the Ft. McClary guards approached us and asked to see some identification. I said, "I'm from the future and don't have any identification but I'm wondering if you've seen an arctic wolf?"



All this play was in preparation for a painting gig with the Chicken Farmer that saw more paint hit the surrounding plants and deck than the handrail. By the time that job is done he'll owe the company store more than he earned.

Note: KDHX is an awesome indie radio station in St. Louis.

Tar sands pipeline to disaster

Did anyone else see the latest climate progress post? Ominous. It might as well read "End of World planned" It's so bad I definitely placed myself on the Dept. of Interior's black list with this email. My internet activity will forever be monitored because of this and Canada is probably getting my name right now to detain at the border. And if I die in a single car accident don't believe it. I drive 45 mph and never drive at night. Follow the money.

From: Oggy Bleacher

Date: Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 10:15 PM
Subject: Tar sands pipeline to disaster
To: keystonexl@cardno.com


Regarding the current project to pipe oil derived from tar sands from Canada to Texas. WHAT? ARE YOU JOKING? It's like someone is trying to destroy the environment as fast as possible. While you may say this is a link in the chain of progress that man is ever climbing to his date with some technological utopia I would like to exclude myself from that category. If this is how you get to a utopia THEN I DON'T WANT TO GO.

I went hiking today and on the return trip I saw a huge snapping turtle in the middle of the road trying to get from one pond to another. The cars and motorcycles were nose to ass traveling at 50 mph. How am I going to help this turtle? It's going to probably cause an accident that kills me and the turtle and where will that leave us? There was no hope. The turtle would be crushed and that BREAKS MY FUCKING HEART.
I know there are turtle protection projects but when I look at the scale of this tar sands project then I believe an entire army would be required to conserve turtle habitat. But that army is going to busy CLEANING UP THE OIL SPILLS WHEN THE NEXT SWARM OF TORNADOES BREAKS THE PIPELINE.

By many estimations this tar sands project is crossing the Rubicon either intentionally or unintentionally. I have strong suspicions that the full dangers are known and this project is strategically putting mankind in a position of no return because the dangers involved will require such abundant resources that the project itself will be required to succeed. If true, this is diabolical genius. It sounds like the financial institutions that are "too big to fail". It takes some brains to weasel your way into supporting the foundations of a building even though you couldn't hold up a cup of coffee. Naturally, you will always appear relevant. I'm not fooled.

I have to consider this when composing my argument because if I were to believe you only needed more information then I would use that tact. But I suspect you know plenty and it is environmental ethics you lack. Your pursuit of profit has led to the natural position that either the tar sands project proceeds or the oil industry itself will become obsolete. So, this would be an act of willful war and ecological terrorism. Am I missing something? Please tell me I am wrong. It gets to the point where a project becomes so monstrous that the lie can no longer hide the truth, that the minds behind this project are putting mankind in check. Only an act of defense will avoid checkmate and like a lowly despot invading a weak nation you are hoping no one will step up to the challenge. This is how I see it because I think the worst motives are pushing this project forward. The cloak of progress has worn so thin it wouldn't hide a speck of dust on a rabbit's ass. Yes, petroleum has fueled an incredible development of gadgets and growth. But this project in particular smells like something sinister and foul. When we cross this line it will make the way of the turtle and the wolf obsolete. You know this. You know we will no longer be able to choose both. One way of life will have to be sacrificed for the other and the turtles will be excluded from a world that sees tar sands as viable.
You are asking me to take it on faith that oil companies have my best interest in mind. This project obliterates any hope of my reaching that conclusion. This project is evidence that an ecological genocide is taking place willfully and secretively. There is no part of this project that works for me. I need only look with my eyes to see this project is a blight and a curse. I think you would only proceed with a project with such horrible return on your investment if the profit was not the motive. This is a strategic attack on all sensible people.
Everything about this project defies common sense. Only a mind numb populace, fattened calves who reside on their asses by bowls of toxic potato chips and watch "two and a half men" greedily slurping sodas, and jerking off their prides into the condom of defeat while the continent's natural resources are defiled, would ignore your project. It's repulsive. This project offends me. It's an abomination and anyone who supports it is choosing a side that will forever be my enemy.
I choose the side of the snapping turtle and the deer. Yes. And I'm not alone.
My phone number is 310-425-XXXX. I live in a van and I'm going to Canada to save the arctic wolf. Even that doesn't sound as crazy as the tar sands project.
Oggy Bleacher

Major Nature Voyeurism

Today was the kind of day that encourages short memories. Winter? What winter? Will kids decry the petroleum addicts who burned the climate up for a quick trip to Honey Dew donuts? No, because once or twice a year will be a day like today that makes them forget everything else and bask in the humidity free sunlight that filtered through my protective beard.
Mt. Major was packed. I heard "This picture will be my new facebook avatar" about ten times today. or "I've got a new picture for facebook." or "Can I post to facebook from here?" And it was true, thanks in part to those hundreds of hours I spent placing aluminum fins in huge heat sinks and crimping fiber optic cable in gigantic harnesses, Mt. Major has total internet access. But the facebook references were out of control. Is any moment private anymore?
Also, I had a short history lesson thanks to a 1981 Midway arcade game:

"In the year 2003, the Omega system developed a method of training its warriors to protect their star colonies over the city of Fomap. Android controlled fighters freed to engage and destroy these Omegan warriors."

There is either some serious coverup happening that the government should be aware of or these guys were way off the mark. The game was called Omega Fighter or something and involved a fighter going around a box shooting triangles. It was old old old, considered monochrome/vector graphics for the black and white, linear design. I'm bored just talking about it.

This was the weekend of the classic video arcade game championship. I didn't get too excited this year since I still had tokens left from last year. But I did play some games since it's next door to Mt. Major. The guy chasing the Donkey Kong record was there with his video camera on his game. No one cares, but that'll be a movie sometime.

On the way through Durham I had a slice of Pizza from Wildcats and Durham house of Pizza and Wildcats won my taste test by a pepperoni width. They are both average slices. I wouldn't get out of bed for either one of them. But right next door was pandemonium as that repulsive show "Man vs Food" was in town as the fat guy tried to eat 15 sliders and ten pounds of french fries. OR something. The show is so fake with fake audience cheering. Everyone was trying to get in the picture*. They interviewed me and I stuck my finger down my throat and vomited on the host's plate of food and then I ate it with my hands.
"What? Isn't that what vultures do?" I said as the vomit dripped off my beard and the cute coed girls (paid audience) ran for cover.
"Get out! You filthy hippie!" they yelled.
"Hahahah." I laughed and washed my face with coca cola. "Not crazy enough for you?" and I leaped through the air and landed on a man's back and bit deeply into his throat with my teeth. "Is this crazy enough for you? Man versus Man! Hahahhhahahaha"
It'll be on the Travel channel in a few weeks. Should be good. Stay tuned.

*This seemed very strange to me. I heard someone say, "Do you want to be on T.V?" And it didn't have the same appeal as it once did. I vaguely remember fame and fortune being tied to television and today it's understood that television is simply better produced and promoted internet...and we can all be on the internet if we want. You want to be on the internet? I'll put you on there today. No problem.

In Defense of The Beatles

I read this attack on The Beatles and I felt it needed a response even if the blogger isn't posting anymore and won't read the comment. Somehow, I think it matters. He doesn't like The Beatles. Considers Rubber Soul a piece of trash. How could I let this stand?

Here's a quote I took from him to begin my comment:
"For sure, these guys have a grand collection of incredible tunes; if only they had opted to consolidate such greatness over two or three albums instead of the numberless albums, international editions, compilations, singles, etc." -Mad Hatter

Hatter, please remove "Band Manager" from any list of future aspirations you have.

Brian Epstein managed The Fuck out these four guys who easily could've ended up playing The Cavern Club for five years and then returned to Liverpool to work in the coal mine.

The lifespan of a good/great band is ten years. Unless you are REM (talk about numberless albums) and fool everyone for 20 years then you have one decade, probably less, to make sure you don't end up opening up for a Poison tribute band in your twilight years or performing karaoke style lip-syncs like Harry Nilsson in his final days. Newsflash: Your opinion is not factored into most musician's game plan.

Surfers don't have the luxury to wait for "that one perfect wave". Surfers surf. Writers write. Musicians make music. They don't sit on the golden egg waiting for it to hatch #1 hits. It's pop art, not commissioned operas. Their career happens in real time and there were so many bands throwing down incredible albums in 1965 and 1966 that if they skip a year to ponder their craft then The Beach Boys or The Hollies or Dylan OR ANYONE basically takes their place and Let it Be and Abbey Road never get recorded. Every song on Rubber Soul is good enough to record. Are they all "Stairway to Heaven" good? No. But they're good enough to record and that's what musicians do.

That's what keeps music vital: it waits for no man. You play and record RIGHT NOW and if you are talented under the gun then you produce great music. If you can't take the heat then it all crumbles. Either way, you can't call a time out in the music business. The blitz is always on and if you need to wait for inspiration then you can collect your welfare check with everyone else. I'll pay you $5000 to write me a publishable essay on the Israel/Palestine conflict that doesn't repeat anything already written about that topic. Can you do in it the next 24 hours? A good writer can. If you need two weeks then welcome to blogsville.

The Beatles recorded for 7 years and they bowed out with dignity. It's not their fault the zeitgeist beatified them in a way The Seekers never enjoyed. Don't confuse your music reviews with your pop culture criticisms.

Eat this:


"They cried the tears, they shed the fears,
Up and down the land,
They stole guitars or used guitars
- So the tape would understand,"

It's a dirty business and I like it that way.

Oggy is Out of Shape

I want to blame the quiche for my lack of health. This is the second quiche this week and this one has jalapeno pepper slices in it. I'm immune to peppers after eating real Mexican food for 8 months. Maybe I burned a hole in my esophagus.
ex:
I'm bicycling past the Babe Ruth field after a tour of downtown. I'm still in my painting clothes because I don't much care what I wear. My beard covers half my chest so it's not like a clean shirt is going to make people want to shake my hand.
So I'm watching the kids play baseball and pondering my lost youth when I hear "whapwhapwhapwhapwhap" real fast over by the tennis courts where I had been practicing serves about half an hour earlier. I know that sound and it is someone hitting against the practice board. That means it's someone without a partner and I've got my racquet. So I fly over there like it's a date and I can hear by the speed, consistency and echo of the ball off the board that this person doesn't miss and is slamming the ball. And the visibility is terrible because it is 9PM. I haven't even seen them swing and I know it's a player. As I think this I see the guy flub a swing and sends the ball over the board into the court I'm in. I fetch it.
"Up for a game?"
"I'm waiting for someone but we can volley until he gets here."

I'm thrilled because I've been hitting 50-100 serves a day to practice and I haven't found a partner to impress. My beard scares everyone away.

He comes over and has a perfect top spin on every volley that makes the ball pick up speed when it hits the ground. I find myself competitively swinging for the fences and ignoring my swollen knee pain. I grunt involuntarily like Bjorn Borg in the French Open.
"You've got skills," he says as his volley sails past my gizzard. I swing and the ball hits my forearm but manages to bounce back over the net.
I want to respond but I'm out of breath.
"Yeah," is all I can sputter out.

He's got me running all over the court so I charge the net and he lobs it over me and I run back and hit it left handed. His backhand swing is with two hands and is flawless. His forehand has a nasty spin that kills it dead before my worn sneakers.

Finally, I step back to serve. This is where practice takes over. The serve is all about technique and method. It's the same motion over and over. It's the one part of the game you can control exactly, like free throws. Everything else is competition. Serves are about perfect routine. The serve is you against yourself. So, the method involves toeing the line, bouncing the ball once with my hand and once with the racquet, tossing the ball straight up with my left hand as I rock back on my heels and then eyeing the ball until it just begins to come down at which point I use my 6ft of height and 3 ft of reach to hit it at the highest point with a slight side spin so the ball doesn't take off in flight over the fence. Even though we're practicing I try to show off and I haven't mastered the serve yet so the ball goes wide. He returns it easily. My next serve is the best I can do, right down the line. He hardly moves and returns a wicked slicing ball that I merely watch sail past me because I never got in position for a return.
"I played in high school," says the guy.
After some more volleying his partner shows up and I'm flailing at the ball because my perception is failing since I'm light headed and thirsty and seeing spots as I gasp for breath. I figure we played enough points for two games (unless his serve is atrocious he won both of them), so barely half a set. and about 1/16th of a match. And I couldn't breath.
"My name is Mike. Thanks for the volley."
"Yeah....my....name....is.....Oggy.... Thanks...."
"You look pale, Oggy."
"Can't....catch....breath....need....water...."
"You need an ambulance?"
"If....I...do....then....I....deserve.....to....die."

So, I'm going to try to make this a priority. What is more important than health? If playing tennis is wrong I don't want to be right. When was the last time you were out of breath?

Dancing on Graves

My brother wanted me to discuss a video from the 1980 cartoon Return of the King where some orcs sing "Where there's a whip, there's a way."

Instead, I'd like to metaphorically tie that in with this event that happened in the capital: It's really only 5 minutes long if your attention span is tested.




First of all, America isn't free. America presents itself as "Free" like Burger King presents its menu as "Food". I listened to a radio interview with Jonathan Simon a voting rights activist at the Election Defence Alliance.
Audio of the WSCA interview
Man, the lies that keep people under the boot are crazy. It's hard to know what to do when elections are not only bought and paid for but just to make sure our vote is worthless the candidates actually cheat. So, not only do you vote for people who lie in their campaign, misrepresent, suck more corporate cock than a high class hooker, and are basically thieves, but the fuckers have to rig the electronic ballots too. You can't win!

But, when I see some kids getting arrested at the Jefferson Memorial I have mixed emotions. First of all, it's a defacto demonstration because it doesn't protest anything.* It's antagonistic. They want to test the limits of free speech but they aren't actually sure what crime they are going to commit or what freedoms are being infringed until they do it. So, these aren't exactly modern day Martin Luther King activists sitting down at cafeteria benches to protest segregation. Specific goals are important in activism. This action seems very much like that "boarding" phenomenon where people take pictures of themselves laying flat in strange locations. The challenge is to do it in interesting places. Flash mod dancing is a similar phenomenon because you get to video tape it and post it on youtube and laugh a little. Flash mobs may be early rehearsal for the real revolution so they have some function. But the current challenge is to do it where there is risk involved and someone had the idea to go to the Jefferson Memorial (maybe the Lincoln Monument was closed for renovation?) The cops there are probably legitimately on guard against actual lunatics with bombs (while in a mall or McDonalds there is not the same threat or security) so their patience is about five seconds long...which is five seconds shorter than the average cop. So right there this is a disaster of a plan. If these cops drew their guns and shot five of these kids dead in order to "keep control" half the country would applaud and the other half would think it was a fake staged event or a trailer for a bad Sean Penn movie. A tiny minority would object in blogs that have no audience.

I feel that this is public property but it is also a memorial. Is it appropriate to be used as a prop for your narcissistic youtube video that clearly is empty activism?* No. Go in front of the White House. OR go somewhere a federal park patrolman with a gun is not going to warn you to leave. And, when the cop warns you to leave or face arrest, then don't be surprised if they arrest you. It's defacto activism because they are basically reacting to the warning and not to any political issue.* They couldn't even make a banner that says "Save The Ocean" or "Thomas Jefferson was Gay" to give some legitimate excuse to get arrested. No, their arrests were in defiance against the authority to arrest people. It's so muddled and pointless. A few blocks from there is a homeless camp where the cops don't arrest anyone! Basically, their desire to conquer the challenge to dance at the memorial was usurped by the cops' desire to maintain a controlled atmosphere which an appeals court ruled IS THEIR SWORN DUTY. Is this some kind of infringement of civil liberties? Let's examine that.

Here's an example: I firmly believe a major change has to take place in mankind's relationship with the environment if the Arctic wolves are to be saved. It's probably too late but I'll pretend there's hope. So, my plan is to raise awareness of the plight of the wolf through a trip to the arctic. It's important enough to take up two years of my life and the closest I've gotten is St. Louis. But, if I crossed the border illegally, something that you'll agree would be a totally harmless act when done for my purposes of reaching Ellesmere Island, then I'd be prosecuted as a federal criminal. My argument in court would be simple: "Your honor, there is no time for me to justify my plans to border police. We have to act today to save the wolves and I'm not going to let political fine print keep me from this mission. It's bigger than your laws and bigger than international borders."

Now, you'll agree that the salvation of an entire species of animal and the altering of mankind's relationship with the environment is more important than laws or international borders. (I seriously hope you agree) And you'll agree that by illegally crossing the border the only thing I've done is break a paper and ink law so we aren't talking about a major blow to Canadian Sovereignty. Am I still justified?

No. Maybe ethically I am justified but legally I'm wrong. The court would say no, there is no exemption for you, Mr. Bleacher, regardless of your self described "mission of wolf mercy". After two months in federal prison, you will serve a suspended 5 year sentence and be required to pay $15,000 in court fees, blah blah blah.

But what about the wolf? The wolf will be a footnote to my trial and my whole message will be obliterated by legalese. So, I must cross that border legally. I want Canada to welcome me with open arms even though I think it's insane that my mission is so hindered. And then I will proceed to make my video of the wolves.

So, the video of kids getting arrested actually made me laugh. They wanted to make an entertaining video and that is what they made. I particularly thought it was funny when the cop says, "This is your final warning" three or four times. hahaha. You will get three final warnings. This is your second first warning. Or when a kid says, "You hate freedom don't you?" Yeah, the cops all sit around the Washington Monument plotting the overthrow of America. They are anarchist secret agents! Revolutionary, it is not. The cops trampled on civil rights? No.
what do you think? One lawyer's opinion would be to challenge the definition of "dance" which sounds like my self-defense in the camping ban fiasco in Santa Cruz by challenging the definition of "sleep".**

Maybe I just don't care about people anymore.***

*The issue seemed to be that a recent appeals court decision declared monuments like TJ memorial places of "reflection and contemplation" not dancing or sleeping or fucking or killing. So, there might've been a point to this and I'm sure the appeals court is losing sleep that their decision caused such trauma and deprivation to these kids. Note: When the activity that gets you arrested is totally legal twenty feet away then it might be you that has the problem.

**I was embroiled in a lengthy legal battle to decriminalize poverty, specifically my poverty that led to my living rent free in the state park outside of Santa Cruz. I didn't try to get caught but the fuckers actually hunted me down with dogs deep in the forest one night. Here was a case of a city generating money with cops. But the plan backfired because most of the homeless people cited for illegal camping never paid their ticket and ended up using their bench warrant notice as toilet paper and suddenly an $82 ticket turned into a jail full of homeless people. This is one way California led to 30,000 people overflow in jails (although the private jail owners never blinked as they made money hand over fist thanks to Reagan and Bush Sr.) And it backfired even further because I personally cost that city thousands of dollars in court time and appeals and delays and making a total mockery of the court system always toeing the line of contempt with ragged clothes and a shaggy beard and long philosophical rants and a 40 page essay "IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY" that I submitted as my affirmation of my movement to dismiss the charges. The city attorney must've laughed his ass off reading that paper but he was required to type out a response which he summed up mostly with the words, "Conspicuously absent from Mr. Bleacher's essay is a clear argument against the law itself."
Anyway, the decriminalization of poverty is a huge issue with real complaints. When poverty leads to actions that are criminal (like sleeping in your car) then you are being victimized because of your bank account. No free country would fine someone with no money because they were sleeping in their car. The funny part is that I was only one of a dozen activists who were protesting the economic hierarchy in Santa Cruz. Our response was to intentionally sleep on the sidewalks or in cardboard boxes outside the city hall to protest the law. If every homeless person who got cited for camping did the same thing as us the whole court system would've collapsed. None of this did any good but it's going to make a unique book. You'll agree it's not as frivolous as dancing at a monument but ethically it's in the same ballpark.

***True.