In Closing

The adventure of a lifetime isn't supposed to mean a lifetime of one, never-ending adventure. There has to be a beginning, middle, and an end. Or else the adventure and the life merge into an indistinguishable blob that is neither life nor an adventure. 

The road takes a toll on one's heart and body. The soul may ripen with age, but the skin wrinkles, the hair turns white, the beard grizzles, the organs shrivel and decay. I remember being able to type accurately and furiously as the library was closing and the librarian was kicking me and the other homeless men into the streets of Santa Monica, typing with the words firing from my fingers, with the passion and the fearlessness of a man in search of a voice, a man who may have found the voice he was searching for, but was pushing the limits. Now I have to spell check the word 'Milk'.

Speaking of Beginnings, Middles, and Ends... I will recollect my three ghosts of travel, the moments, (one could call them eras since I'm talking about a decade of time). The beginning of the Man in The Van was not the first post, nor the tenth, because I think those were attempts to discover my blogging persona. The beginning was when I morphed into the honest, unaffected asshole one sees today. That was probably on the sands of Mexico, La Paz...summer of 2009. The van's timing cover gasket blew out and required a full dis-assembly of the front of the engine in the parking space I had just rented at a house. It was embarrassing that the second day I met that family I was neck deep in grease, but such is life. I had to fix that gasket twice because there are two layers of gaskets and the deepest one was the one that failed. (Hey, 10 years later it's never needed adjustment.) The Mexican journey was always one that could collapse at any second. I planned to spend one year in Mexico, travel towards Guatemala and abandon the van when it failed me. But I felt comfortable in La Paz up until the insane summer heat arrived and, from apathy and malaise, I did not get on the ferry to mainland Mexico. The heat drove me quite mad until I only dreamt of northern climate, the coolness of trees. Also, I had planned badly for the trip as my bank card expired and I didn't have access to any money. So I drove north without ever grasping how the persona of the blog had been adopted without my being aware. I wasn't acting anymore. Life in the van had become my life, it was not a phase anymore. I had faced mechanical challenges in desperate times in harsh conditions and I had been forced to embrace the challenge, and the process shed my previous persona that treated the van as a separate, 8 cylinder, character-rich conveyance. By the time I drove north from La Paz, the van was a part of me and that marked the beginning of the journey. Our fates had become inseparable.

Surfing Safari

 I have been sorting my box of nostalgia, looking for clues to what went horribly wrong, and I came on these surfing photos from what I think is the summer of 1988 because I bleached my hair blonde a year later. '88 was a classic summer of pure bohemian insanity. Notice the crystal clear sky and bright sunshine of New England! And the huge waves with nice point breaks of Northern Atlantic? Just begging to be surfed. Ha! I've seen bigger waves in a lake.

I always wore my Red Sox hat, even surfing. Everyone adored me, though. Mr. Kodiak at top left and J.J. The Lady Killer bottom left.

The waves broke, literally, in 14 inches of water. And the 'wave' was only a wave for maybe 3 seconds, after which it became white froth and the fins of the board would dig into the sand and pitch the rider forward onto his bean.

What went wrong? Well, I never learned to surf. I definitely found better surf spots, but I am not a huge fan of swallowing gallons of radioactive, polluted salt water. Call me crazy. We move on but I have no problem looking back. One thing that I pine for is my collarbones and shoulders that had not yet been separated. When I separated my collarbones (both collarbones) and also separated my right shoulder on an epic trip to Alaska I became permanently deformed. Only the most recent two years of rehabilitation of my spine and shoulders has me at a point where I can reach over my head and sleep without pure agony. Back in 1988 I had no problem sleeping. Now I gotta apologize for being a cripple with chronic neck pain. Oh, pardon my selfishness while I move to Mexico to rehab my deformed spine!

Summer 1989

Oggy, demonstrating how to sell cigarettes. I got a big bonus because it was my last check. I left for Alaska shorty after.

I made a lot of mistakes during the summer of 1989. Making $100 a week working nights at a convenient store wasn't one of the mistakes because it gave me this great photo of me with my bleach blonde hair (it was a fad for men to bleach their hair blonde in 1989 using Sun-in or hydrogen peroxide. Of course I left it in too long and it turned orange!) and my camouflage fatigue army surplus pants at my job in a store that is much changed. Good lord! But I grew my mustache out and didn't bleach that? I'm surprised I wasn't preemptively put in a sex offender's database. (Apparently, I didn't see the sun very much that summer because I'm as pale as an albino ferret. Actually, this reminds me why Summer in New England sucks so bad because the sun never shines. The weather is awful in New England about 340 days a year while 20 days sprinkled in September and October are nice. Only people who have never been to Atlixco, Mexico or Tilaran, Costa Rica or Masaya, Nicaragua or Quito, Ecuador would think New England weather is "ok.")

No, the mistakes were deciding to join up a asphalt paving crew way the hell out in Rochester and busting my ass for almost no money hauling hot asphalt onto driveways and sidewalks. What a shitty job, but I was trying to learn the hard way about construction. And I remember deciding that if I played baseball for the Legion team then I would never be able to work and I was trying to save money because I had enrolled in the University of Alaska and would have to cross the continent by car and I intended to fund a Denali expedition. So I went to work.

Looking back, there was no good decision that year. College was a bad choice, working was a bad choice, baseball was a bad choice, girls, Red Sox, jerking off, building log cabins. It was all too much and too soon and I'd spent too much time being pulled one way or another by false convictions and conventional wisdom, which I now recognize as flawed. Whatever everyone else was doing, I should've done the opposite. I should've bought a motorcycle and ridden to Chile. Or moved to Nepal to do some thinking. I needed to cleanse myself of this insane bleach blonde conformity and stop pretending or trying to fit in. Actually, this deformed Halloween costume is an example of ME TRYING TO CONFORM. How fucked up is that? I wasn't trying to be different. No, I was doing what every one else was doing. I was drinking and fucking and driving shitty cars and bleaching my hair and wearing clothes from the military. Why? I was trying to fit in to the conventional bullshit so I would not stand out. Sure, college was 5000 miles away, but it was still a classroom full of tired 20 year old kids who couldn't wipe their ass. It was still conventional and would never work for me. I had only stayed in high school because of baseball and once I "graduated" I realized high school had done nothing but attempt and fail to conform me to politically correct standards of "Man who fucks and makes babies and produces plastic shit for mass consumption." My teachers were simple minded family men who got into teaching because it gave them summers off to golf and travel. This was before the housing market spiked and drove everyone but the software developers out of New England. But as far as giving much thought to what they were teaching they all failed miserably. They were conventional and the company line was to produce more company men. And this photo demonstrates in a twisted way what that produces....a bleach blonde freak in military clothes selling cancer sticks and diabetes beverages to drunk street prostitutes. People were proud of me! I got a bonus! Congratulations!

I don't regret these times because I didn't know any better. I know I failed myself as much as I was failed. I have a better understanding of what it takes to reach teenagers and I know it's a rare trait. But is it normal to go through 16 years of public education, hundreds of teachers, and not be able to identify one's own learning style? Or never have a lesson that analyzes pedagogy as it applies to you specifically? Yes, it's normal because it requires an elite kind of teacher who does not lecture, but guides a student to monitor his own learning, which is the fundamental skill needed: self-reflection.
For instance, in Josh Waitzkin's* book The Art of Learning he writes about a Dr. Carol Dweck's research into learning styles. The simplified theory proposes there are entity learners and incremental learners. This is the stuff that would make sense to teach to someone younger than 45 years old! But better late than never? So, Entity learners believe they have inherited ability. Incremental learners believe ability is progressive. When given easy math problems, they both perform equally. When given math problems too difficult, they both get the wrong answer, but the Entity learners actually think the problems are beyond their limit permanently. They believe there is a limit to their comprehension and when it is reached they are done learning. The math problem they got wrong represents their cement ceiling of comprehension. The Incremental learners believe no such thing and simply see it as material they have never encountered. Fine, but the third math problem they are given is another 'easy' problem, one they can solve. Well, the Incremental learners go back to their known abilities and solve the problem. The Entity learners are actually shaken by the premonition that they have a limit and are too distracted to solve the easy problem. I'm not saying this theory is divine, but I certainly recognize (having taught grade school math) that indeed there are different learning styles and the students themselves are not aware of even the existence of different learning styles. Most of them indeed categorize themselves as 'good' or 'bad' at math, inherently, which I know is false. Yet math teachers blunder on as though Algebra was the problem and not self-reflection. So, the specific age set that deserves to be exposed to learning styles and multiple intelligence theory is exactly the age group that is guarded from this information and is instead given milk and crackers? Why? Because they are too young to make any kind of adjustments? Maybe. Yes, the teacher ought to make some accommodations for multiple learning styles, but ultimately the student is the one who must learn to translate the babbling teacher into something comprehensible. Are they going to learn that magically? They are going to magically adopt coping mechanisms that 100 years of psychology and pedagogical research has not yet reached a conclusion on?

I also know the cost of pondering the universe long enough to reach some original conclusions and I can see why most people skip it and prefer to read the Denny's Menu. You can argue that life is too short to search for meaning and it's better to die bewildered and innocent and dumb because that's how you entered the world. Yes, I can see that argument.

*I've joined a local chess club as a short cut to learning Spanish and Waitzkin is a chess player not afraid to give away his secrets, so I'm reading his interesting Chess confessional after 'borrowing' it from a digital library.

Oggy on the right. A dude who never taught me about point values on the left.

After playing chess for maybe 40 years I was competing against Mario, the chess maestro at the club and he said something like, "El Alfil y el Caballo son iguales. Tres puntos." by means of teaching me in an obvious tone of voice. And after translating this in my head I still had no idea what he was talking about. The Bishop and the Knight have point values? But Chess is not a game of scores, it is a win/lose/draw game. No score is kept so I'd never heard this before. I find this funny because Waitzkin's writes that the first lesson for novice chess students is to learn all the pieces have point values. I guess it's better late than never to get my first chess lesson. The Bishop and Knight are equal to 3 pawns, or Peons. The Rook is 5 pawns and the Queen is 9 pawns. But the funny part is that I had personally put a preference on all these pieces that was completely different and affected my strategy for all the time I've played Chess. I had decided The Rook was limited because it was a simple shape physically and I associated it with a Private in the army. You might think the pawn should be the private in the army, but actually I associated the pawn with civilian conscripts, those forced into active duty against their will, those to be pitied. Maybe the pawns are at worst National Guard reserve medics in my mind. Ok, and then I decided because the Knight, or Caballo, could float over pieces like a Wizard I felt The Knight was higher value than a Bishop, or Alfil, whom I felt was ideologically limited because he was related to the Church and could only move diagonally, continually blocked by his philosophic hypocrisy, simultaneously worshiping God and also War, a divided intellect. My chess strategy always neglected the Bishop out of disdain, casually harmed the Rook, protected the Pawns (from empathy) and tried to win the game with the Queen and the Knight and the pawns. Now, I might lose a King, whom I felt lots of disdain for since he is useless and arrogant and never truly engages in battle, but I often was consoled because the opponent didn't take my Knight. And with the chance to get a checkmate or take my opponent's Rook, I usually take the Rook, out of spite. Now, who is right?

My Ideal

Step 1) be desperate and lonely
Step 2) go to bar and get rejected by everyone there
Step 3) buy cardboard box of wine
Step 4) drink alone in dirty room with Chet Baker record playing
Step 5) nod your head knowingly

This hits me where it hurts.

Banana Loco

Why was I too modest for nudity but not modest enough for two banana leaves? this was in southern Ecuador 25 years ago.

Carpenters to The Rescue

When things look their bleakest I can always count on Karen Carpenter to lift my spirits. I do listen to The Carpenters recordings but I prefer to play from this vintage Greatest Hits songbook I found in a St. Louis thrift store with accurate keys and arrangements far superior to the others I own (yes, I own multiple Carpenters songbooks). The arrangement of Ticket to Ride might be Richard's greatest accomplishment because the original Beatles version could easily be mistaken for a peppy pop rock song when the lyrics are obviously melancholy. Same applies to Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl. But Goodbye to Love is the ultimate melancholy song and even the key change at the end is only a harmonic nod to resurrection of Oggy's spirit, when the lyrics still confirm his heart's demise. I really belong in a dark cavern far from the meddlesome trauma of love and longing.

Ninja Warrior

Who is this masked Ninja Warrior hidden in the bushes? His three-sectioned staff is most intimidating!

Back in the days before I knew I would be a major league baseball player I trained in Ninjitsu, a secret society of warrior assassins who protected the emperor. I still have my collection of Ninja magazines...such as these

...and they taught me the True Ninjitsu way. I also studied many secret powerful hand moves that focused my energy and left my hypnotized enemies helpless. I also have the Ninja uniform and some illegal shirkins and a Samauri sword and Hari Kari blade and grapling hook and these hooks that strap to one's feet and hands and enabled me to climb trees like an ocelot. I have all of those in a wooden chest I made in Junior High School.

Young Oggy

This speaks for itself. I'm happy because the red sox were gonna win the 1987 world series and draft me in 1995 by the latest. that was my plan and i saw no reason it would not work out.

right in line with fashion of 1987

I worked here and that's probably my bicycle propped by the trash can that I would empty at the end of the day. I stocked Yoo Hoos and beer in the ice barrel. That help wanted sign in the window had my name on it. For some reason I am not wearing my Spudz MacKenzie t-shirt. Maybe it was dirty.

 

Codependency Anthem

I finally solved the data issue between my phone and my computer (gracias to cheap hi-tech Chinese crap). But these HD cameras create gigantic video files so I have to compress the file so it will upload. This involves editing the footage and saving it as another movie.

Here's the Hoagy tune from 1939, the theme song of the distraught. 
Here's a cool story to go along with it:

I met a drunk girl with big lonely eyes at a bar. She was with her boyfriend but she just oozed self-destructive tendencies and was tired and depressed and I fell in love with her. I dreamed about her and jerked off thinking about her and looked for her at every bar. I thought I saw her vomiting in an alley and went down there to see if she was ok and it was not her and I said, "Sorry, I thought you were someone else."
This went on all Summer and I wanted to kiss her and lay in bed and watch her smoke cigarettes and drive her to the Social Services office to pick up food stamps. We would make love tenderly and she would massage my prostate when I climaxed. Then I saw her boyfriend and we were talking and I was drunk and said, "I have a confession. I am in love with your girlfriend."
We were playing pool and the guy stopped in the middle of taking a shot at the 7 ball.
"Really? Because I've been looking to pawn her off on someone for months. I thought about you but I like you too much."
"But I love her depression, she's wounded."
"No, dude, she's terminal. I wasn't really dating her, she showed up on my doorstep and had nowhere else to go. I couldn't get rid of her."
"She's so dreamy. I could talk her out of slitting her wrists all day long."
"She'd be doing everyone a favor."
"Where is she now?" I asked with heavy desperation in my voice that translated to "Her silky hair beneath the wool beret, where are you my beloved, my angel, my devoted love?"
"Probably in jail. She's been indicted twice for murder." He took the shot at the 7 Ball and sunk it. We were playing 9 Ball and his leave put a lot of green between the cue ball and the 8.
I gasped with ecstasy. This would be the third girlfriend of mine to involve prison.
"Does she need help? I could work a second job to pay for her lawyer. Only the best for her, only the best for my beloved."
"Dude, have you even had a conversation with her? She's sniffing glue, drooling, she has no idea where she is. My 13 year old son finally told me that she has to get out of the house. Then she was shacked up with some junkie and the dude overdoses on her anti-psychotic medication, dies, the second junkie to do that with her drugs, and...hey, are you listening to me?"
I was dreaming of the old scar on her cheek that she didn't even bother to hide with make up, and wondered if it was self-inflicted or caused during one of the many sexual assaults her uncle perpetrated against her.
"What?"
"I'm telling you that she's been indicted twice for homicide. They call her The Black Widow."
"Yeah, she's so awesome. So divine. Can I call her? Would you be offended?"
He eyed the 8 Ball and not only failed to sink it, but he left it hanging on the lip of the pocket...and the 9 Ball was near a side pocket.
"I think it's a really bad idea. She's sincerely sick, she's a junkie and she's mentally ill and she's homeless, has no direction, indicted for two murders, depressed, suicidal, refuses to take any birth control, fucks anyone, she..."
"So I can call her? Do you have her number?"
"Man, man, man..."
"I'll say that I found it in the phone book."
"Don't mention me at all. She fucking called the cops on me, said I had kidnapped her, talking crazy shit about alien abductions. She's bipolar to the max."
"I won't say nothing about you. I just want to take her walking in the park, play tennis with her, go to the theater and watch Grease or Cats because I love her."
"Tennis? Wow, you are hopeless, shit, good luck."
I stood up and sunk the 8 Ball and then sunk the 9 Ball shooting left handed, easy, like a pro. He shrugged and shook my hand.

So, he gives me the number and I call her immediately and tell her the most babbling drunk excuse in the history of cover-ups as to how I got her number and that I've dreamed about her all summer and wanted to meet her and brush her hair and take her to an ice cream shop downtown for ice cream and show her all the special spots around town that only I know about. Her tone of voice is exactly the opposite of how my fantasies about this conversation would be. I imagined she would be breathless and excited and echo all of my longing but instead she said, "Who is this? No I don't remember you. Did we fuck?" In a very gruff and displeased and bothered tone, very suspicious, very leery and annoyed and defensive. No trace of the affection I deeply desired. My heart broke a little. She tells me she will meet me at a bar and I say I can come get her and she says no, she will drive to me.

And so I wait all night nursing sad watery White Russians in polyester disguise, gay men rubbing my plaid knees, whorish bartenders showing cleavage for big tips. I keep asking the bartender what time it is? And the bartender tells me and I say my girlfriend is late. And the bartender gives no response. I tell strangers that my girlfriend is coming to meet me and we're going to the theater later on. And I tell this story for hours and hours until the bar closes and it's only me and I ask if they will stay open a little longer because I think my girlfriend is stuck in traffic. And I call her number again and it goes to voicemail and in my message I beg her to come to the bar. Is she ok?, I can come look for her and I am a mechanic and will fix her car if it is broken. And I talk until the voice mail runs out of memory and then I hold the cell phone like I'm holding her chin before I kiss it and then the bartender kicks me out rudely onto the street and drunk kids walk by and make fun of my polyester pants and jean jacket ensemble and I yell back, "You motherfuckers, I've got an REO Speedwagon concert pin, so fuck you, I've got the pin and my girlfriend and me are going to the Journey concert this summer and we're going to rock our denim jackets and I'll play her sad Hoagy Carmichael songs on the piano and she'll understand."

And the drunk kids throw empty beer cans at me and I wait in the fog but she never comes to the bar and never answers the phone again. Still, I think of her and how she was perfect for me and she wore a horizontal striped Russian Navy shirt and leaned heavily on the bar and had thin shoulders and I don't know why I love you like I do, I don't know why I just do.

Memorabilia Snapshots

compelling evidence

Top Left: With my buddy D., Oggy climbs the 3 or 4 pitch Cathedral Ledge in the White Mountains one Fall. I have no idea which specific route we took but I know it was not too hard. Oggy is demonstrating a difficult pose that was required to slip through a narrow gap between his beard and the rock face. I remember falling around the 4th pitch, maybe 600 feet above the ground, my feet hurt so badly they lost grip. The ropes held, the anchors held. The friend at the sharp end of the rope had to belay me while hanging on his own anchor.

The Ledge from afar

I also remember rappelling down one ledge and accidentally unhooking the tether line. What is worse is that I don't remember unhooking it. So this would disqualify me from flying for the Navy because I'm required to have 100% recall and there was simply a time when I hooked that tether on me and then a time when I realized it was gone and laying at the bottom of the ledge. If I had to guess I would say a subliminal death wish took over and set me up for a tragic fall. I have to use the precautionary principle and assume I'm mentally imbalanced for technical rock climbing. This is too bad because the experience is exciting, but unfortunately the shoes cause my crippled toes to bleed every time I climb because they are crammed into those tight rock climbing shoes. So, it's no great loss to the sport. I can see I'm wearing wool military surplus sweater and shorts over blue long underwear: classic Fall climbing wardrobe.

Top Right: Embarrassing photo shoot in San Francisco, with the idea that I would walk into an agency on Market Street and sit with the chiseled gay men and women who were taller than me with huge heads of hair and get a contract. I was pale, didn't go to the gym and smelled like horse shit because I worked with horse shit every day. And I guess I thought a white shirt, western string tie and black pants were a good idea. My hair went over my head like a cape. I spent a lot of money going back and forth to those fashion agencies and they treated me like I was complete dirt. For the record, I did not wake up one day and think I should be a model, someone told me I could make $500 a day wearing boxer shorts and so I cleaned myself up and went to S.F. rolling the dice on my chinline and narrow skull. If I had stayed in costume with manure and ranch wear I probably stood a better chance of getting hired, but not much better.

Bottom: The reason I smelled like horse shit was because I was living in a trailer surrounded by horse shit. My job was to shovel horse shit every day of 7 horses, feed them hay, keep their stalls from falling apart, corral the sheep and chickens and pigs and shoot at the coyotes who tried to steal the eggs. That earned me a free place to stay on the side of a hill in a pervert's mansion which included a piano that I stuffed in there, my first piano, and a refrigerator that was outside covered with a piece of plywood. In the day I would work for an illegal contractor doing mostly ridiculous landscaping and remodeling jobs that made no sense to me. I was constantly digging up trees or digging holes for a mail box post. On the Weekends I took the train to S.F. and begged fashion agencies to dress me up in underwear and take photos of me. Eventually, this got old so I took some classes at the nearby community college, learned that I qualified for a full tuition scholarship at any CSU system college and decided Humboldt State University was where I should go. But for about 2 years I was a horse caretaker. I have no idea whose Volvo that is in the picture.

Refugee

Should I even attempt an analysis of current events in my condition? I shouldn't, but it is my duty as a philosopher. I have chosen the career path of the philosopher/social critic and though heaped with scorn and derision I have fulfilled my objectives. I did what I set out to do. It has cost me my sanity and my emotional well-being but it's also entertained the woeful court of drunken jesters and that detail entertains me so the cycle is complete. My limbs feel like they are made of soggy canvas of a Cuban refugee raft or Haitian inner-tube floating to safety. I want to write a haiku to the Cuban refugees:

Haiku to Cuban Refugees

The jungle creeps in
on the drunken immigrant.
Lust for Miami

Current events has kept me hiding with the dust bunnies under this Nicaraguan hostel bed that hasn't been moved since Somoza was still an item on an Indian Restaurant Menu. The Chikunguna music festival has an open ticket policy and balloon lanyards float like guitar riffs in the dry Hollywood Bowl.

We harvest our own discord on the backs of cheating hearts and frozen assets in a nostalgia dream. You know who you are who cling to the threads of an imposed emotional refugee. I defy you to watch this Tom Petty* video from when Oggy looked like this:

1988 Fenway Park: vintage patina on memorabilia snapshot

and NOT come away with your life altered. You don't have to live like a refugee....but the Cubans would disagree, they are refugees and they have to live like refugees. I dedicate this Tom Petty tune to the Cubans living on cardboard hopes and dreams in the gravel parking lot of the American Dream. Oggy never looked better...he's a cripple now and an emotional refugee chasing rabbit dreams in the big jangle night.

One mass shooting in Georgia is eclipsed by a bigger mass shooting in California, like a fucking horse on a bad trip kicking you in the forehead this tasty bit of shit sticks on the roof of your mouth like cheap peanut butter from the Ocean Job Lots discount aisle.

Oggy went snorkeling the other day looking for the broken emotional pieces lost in the immigration from youth to adulthood. Wouldn't that be more interesting than gold, to hunt for bits of emotional stability? Oggy destructs his self-hood in pursuit of a unified self-hood, his buffet. The hypocrisy is written on his eyeballs backwards so he can read it when he sleeps. Oggy lives in  Pepperland cavern hidden from view where he analyzes and reanalyzes his mistakes and his trespasses, alternately judging the puerile phantom culture propagandized in the press and also loathing the dark roots that have poisoned his hypertension heart. It's an '80s soap opera that has no good endings so we postpone the guaranteed disaster until the moths of mass shooting appear. Two of them in one day. And what is it all mean, you think you know and pontificate with your belly against the walnut bar but you actually have no fucking clue and are out of your element. Amateur philosophers are easily exposed by their pathetic stroke in deep waters. Don't bother. Stick you Family Guy, stick to date rapes and Campus crime and continued faux support of cause celebre bullshit. Omnipotent and dark chasm where the nostalgic fools never return. All the butterfly cuff links in the world can't save a savage savant.

The term terrorism seems to be thrown around by a lot of couch potatoes on steroids and anti-depressants. I got no time for pundits who don't define their terms and assume previous pundits have trained the humanzees to think. Well, I'm not down with that trip so here's my definition of terrorism:
Terrorism must include three elements: 1) acts of anti-social behavior....2) those who perform acts of anti-social behavior...3) and pundits/gurus/leaders who incite, instigate, misinform, manipulate and encourage, celebrate those anti social acts.

This is mostly what is implied when asshole CNN faces moan about 'terrorism' but since it is never explained or defined I am not sure.  But I do know that terrorism differs from your random spree killer by a simple tangible connection between anti-social behavior and an instigator/encouraging element who was not directly involved in the anti-social act, but whose punditry specifically encourages such an act.

I'm not going to outline every scenario because it gets subjective. Let us all use the term 'terrorism' at least in a situation that is not reserved for the casual lunatic.Speaking of casual lunacy, I think I'll make a prediction based on current events: Since Republican candidates are already more concerned about plastic bags than assault rifles and bloviating about "we need a war-time president" because that prepares voters for an assault on every level...I predict an eventual war between Muslims and Christians. I see it as self-fulfilling. The conditions in America will eventually deteriorate to a violation of religious freedoms beyond simply protesting at a mosque and involve ID cards, food rationing...and lack of access to other constitutional freedoms. This will force Muslims to either leave or to organize and defend their rights. That clash will lead to an explosion of violence and a choosing of sides and I think the Religious nuttery will supersede jingoistic allegiance and the religions will fight to the death for the next century. This may be the ultimate Republican goal because War is their domain and the country associates war with Republican values so they will vote Republican in time of war. Thus Republicans need war to maintain power and they consider American voters collateral damage in their sick quest for control. If Americans were slightly smarter or valued critical thinking then this quest would fail but incredibly the conditions are perfect for a hostile coup by a war hawk organization that will lead to decades of civil war. Honestly, America is overdue for upheaval and is actually overdue for being overthrown, but the marketing machine has figured out that you must maintain superficial regularity while the overthrow is happening behind the scenes. That way, the term "America" can be thrown around to unify people when it is a meaningless statement since around the 1950s when Hoover and Ike conspired to eliminate America's self-determination. 

In other happy news, when the police force acts as judge, jury, and executioner then you have a failed state.



* I walked into a music store in Shreveport, Louisiana and the owner said, "Are you Tom Petty?" I said, "Dig it. Give me that Les Paul and put it on Mick Jagger's bill."

1985: I Survived

Yes, this is what I wore

I had a chance to revisit my illustrious/colorful past and found these inexplicable photo. Puberty does awful things to a man's mind and I was no exception as the mixture of Chess King fashion, Miami Vice popularity, a pretty staff girl at the racquetball court named Darcy Devins, and a jock mentality saw me romping with beach bunnies in Florida solely on the magnetic strength of my white suspenders and dinner jacket and striped shorts. Personality, conversation, job skills...all of these were ignored in favor of 'the exact right cologne' and 'big hair'.

There was a sad stretch of time when I was very interested in fashion of the day. Now I have come to terms with my personality and the fashion that it favors but back then in 1985...30 years ago...I was a slave to Guess ads and John Hughes movies, Swatch watches...Wham! etc. Although these clothes certainly had character, I feel they have the wrong character for me now and then. In High School we wear the clothes and lust after the girls that we are supposed to lust after. As we grow older we find our own tastes. It's very possible that I was wearing white elastic suspenders under neath that dinner jacket to hold up my shorts! Why?

I owned matching white canvas shoes and wore them with no socks because I was wicked cool.

No drugs were involved in this photo, but some trees were harmed. Maybe 1986, when men's spiked hair was normal.

'85 or '86. My pre-porn career in white short shorts and white Red Sox pullover polo shirt. I still wear this ensemble from time to time.

home made sweater with a young Oggy

Screenshot Trivia #6

a failure so epic that it was good

I know I'm meandering toward the grave when I almost watch the whole 80 minutes of this 1985 film. Made 30 years ago and I thought I had seen everything. No, this movie slipped under the radar and it's so abominable that it's amusing. Actually, a movie that transcends quality like this almost succeeds in creating its own universe because it defies all laws of film and physics and convention. It is the kind of movie where everyone is wearing a watch. And why are wizards always riding horses. That makes no sense.
Take a guess at the movie?

Oggy in 2 Forms

Not my GIF, but I like it. A baby 3-toed sloth doing an impersonation of my wounded ego

Here's a more realistic photo of Oggy

I don't remember this photo scenario but maybe we were celebrating the divorce of my parents around this time. hahaha. pretty funny. I think I was practicing for my career as a funeral director.

Then Came Oggy

It's fitting that my story about how I encountered this dated television show called Then Came Bronson should sound like an episode of Then Came Bronson.

Typical Day in Bronson's Life

Only the oldest among you will even know what this show was as it only ran for 26 episodes* in 1969 and I have no idea what the producers were thinking as the ethic or premise is purely counter-culture, yet the show itself is an hour long and was on network television....so who the fuck was sitting around their house after 10 hours grinding metal at a factory to watch a guy wander around the West on a motorcycle, when you could watch the last season of Star Trek or Bewitched or the awesome Hawaii 5-O? And the counter-culture hippies who were possibly the target audience didn't have televisions. Just a terrible idea for a television series, but it had an even worse execution as the scenarios, such as in the 15th episode where I took this screenshot from, has a summary like this:  

Bronson is charmed by Sybil who fancies herself a hippie witch and is part of a band of occultists led by cult-leader Hermes. Bronson at first is entertained by her beliefs but later recoils at her lifestyle. Ultimately, Sybil has to determine the greater meaning of the supernatural, and in the process, life...and somehow gets her VW van running again.

There's a trace of interesting potential in that premise that even Scooby Doo fans might dig, but it quickly dissolves into dull insanity and tiresome lunacy and it seems that Bronson crashes his motorcycle in every episode and the directors were either aspiring to be the next Orson Welles, or they had never watched another television show. Extreme face close-ups follow extreme distance helicopter shots, there's no predicting what will happen next. It's like a cross between Valley of the Dolls and Lost in Space. Even a pop culture historical junkie could not tolerate watching all these episodes. I fast forwarded through most of the two episodes I watched and they both were very unsatisfying. Literally, my life is more interesting.

But there's a greater topic here that I want to explore and it involves many characters and true scenarios and some interesting coincidences. For instance, the series started in 1969, which is the year my van was manufactured. So this is the kind of television show people watched the year of Woodstock and LSD. Insane. You'd have to be drunk and asleep to leave the channel on Then Came Bronson. It's abysmal.

But television is entertainment and they can't choose to air a black screen, so they go with the best option at the moment and after 26 tiresome episodes, they cancel it, but Kurt Russell and Martin Sheen and others all paid their rent with appearances in this show so that's life.


Now, the interesting detail is not only was the show from 1969, but the first time I ever heard of this show was sitting around with my buddy Ron, in La Paz, Mexico, drinking beer, smoking pot, god knows what else and I was telling him of my recent history. Allow me to enter the conversation in progress....

"No," I corrected, "I couldn't get on the ferry to Mazatlan because there was something wrong with my paperwork. I have no idea what it was."
"That sounds reasonable and predictable," said Ron.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"It means you are like a stray dog who walks into a restaurant and barks and gets kicked out so he goes back into the alley and says, 'They say my reservation wasn't confirmed.' That's what I mean."

"I don't want to argue about that," I said through a haze of smoke. "So instead of going to Mazatlan and onward into the Mayan empire, I went to the beach and at the beach a car drove up with two flat tires. And this isn't the beach near town. It's the beach miles and miles over nothing, the end of the earth."
"So you fixed the tire?"
"I did. I had tire patches that you force into the hole and also my bike pump. They fed me fish."
"Ok."
"Then I drive to the other side of the peninsula and it was getting dark and a fucking cow is standing in the middle of the road."
"You hit a cow?"
"Almost. I swerved at the last second and ended up in a ditch. But I wisely drove further into the ditch and was able to find an old goat trail that the van could traverse and get back to the road."
"And the cow was watching the whole time."
"No, the cow was immediately struck and exploded by a huge semi truck driven by coked up Mexican drug smugglers."
"How do you know they were smuggling drugs?"
"I'm just speculating to give the story some detail."
"Did the cow really die?"
"No."
"Was there ever a cow?"
"No."
"So, you're in a ditch?"
"Actually, I'm on the beach, sleeping on the beach, trying to catch fish, eating cans of soup I brought from Los Angeles to trade for necklaces....and I meet a guy who wants to learn guitar, so I follow him for miles on this sandy beach road where there is nothing, and I'm sure he's going to kill me and when I get to his house I plug in and just lay waste to that guitar, like I'm possessed by Eric Clapton. And his girlfriend appears out of nowhere and she looks like she's been crying...and she stares at me as I play guitar and actually starts crying. And the guy vanishes and I'm there with this strange woman who is crying and she says, 'I was pretty once, but you probably think I'm fat and ugly now' and she lifts her shirt up and grabs her tits...'you wouldn't want me now.' And I'm fucking trapped in this dungeon miles and miles from anyone with dusty guitar amps and a drum set with this strange, half-naked woman who is crying and looks suicidal...."
"Did you fuck her?"
"No. She was appalling, grotesque. Some men rise to the occasion and take advantage of hysterical women. Not me."
"Some men try to reassure her."
"What are you talking about? It usually takes months for the women in my life to become hysterical and suicidal! This girl was crying the second I met her."
"Tell her everything'll be alright. Something tender."
"Whatever. I really tried to get away as fast as possible. I escaped through a broken window in the bathroom and fled into the night with no idea which direction I was going. I'm repulsed by hysteria."
"You're going to have a lonely life. All women get hysterical, even teenage hookers. Especially teenage hookers."
I sighed in poignant depression, "So I've noticed."
Ron tapped his joint ash on the floor. "And...does this story have a point? Those hookers I ordered will be here any minute and I need to shower."
"I thought you showered with the hooker first?"
"I do. But I like to be clean when I shower with a hooker. I'm not going to wash my ass crack with a hooker in the shower with me. What kind of impression would that make?"
"Jesus, did you lace this pot with mescaline? You are making no sense right now."
"Finish the fucking story so I can clean up before the hooker arrives."
"Story?"
"YES, the fucking story about you on the beach, the guitar dungeon, the hysterical woman, why you didn't go to Mazatlan. A week ago you were talking about some archeological dig in the Guatemalan jungle, 'Lost City of Gold', panthers, some insanity like that. And now you're sitting here and you look, frankly, like a speed junkie, rail thin, flesh hanging off your face, sun-burned, bleeding lips, ranting, talking a mile a minute, lying to me for no reason, babbling about half-naked hysterical women, if you steal anything from me I'll kick your ass. You know, a cocaine freak will steal your wallet and run away. A Meth head will steal your wallet and then try to help you find it...what's so fucking funny?"
"Ah, Ron, you think I'm doing speed?"
"I watched you buy cocaine to impress that hot little Mexican chick."
"But that's cocaine."
"Cocaine is speed. Don't you know your drug families?"
"I don't. Everything is so debauched. I want to scrub my soul clean. WHY IS EVERYTHING SO DIRTY AND DISGRACED?"
"Oggy, you have no idea what's going to happen to you every day, do you?"
"Does anyone?"
"You know who you remind me of?"
"Don't say Jim Morrison. Everyone says Jim Morrison and I really don't look like him. We're both brunettes, that's the only similarity.
 I look more like the Jesus on those Jehovah's Witness cartoon books they hand out."
"I'd say you look more like Gilligan, from Gilligan's Island," said Ron with deadpan bluntness.
"Ouch."
Ron frowned as he scratched his balls, "But that's not what I'm referring to. You ever see that television show called Then Came Bronson?"
"God, no."
"It was this show on right before I went to Vietnam in 1970. It was only interesting if you had taken acid or were stoned."
"You could say that about a lot of media."
"Well, this guy wanders around the country on a motorcycle and there's no point to any of it. He meets people and gets into trouble, crashes his bike, helps people, then straightens everything out and leaves."
"Then Came Bronson?"
"Yes. It's your life. Now, it's time for you to get your hippie ass back to your van. Can you make it?"
"Does it matter?" I said as I wandered away.

Typical Day in Oggy's Life, circa 2009

That was the first time I ever heard of this television show. And after watching two episodes I can say Ron was very close in his comparison. Except for the fact Bronson was riding a Harley and I was riding a Vespa Ciao, we had similar experiences. And this is the tragedy of this show: they were actually trying to make a vaguely honest demonstration that A) riding off on a Harley is no picnic B) The world is fucked up on all sides. C) Real life is slow, vague, lacking resolution. It rains and you get wet. D) You'll probably only meet people who are loony, but that's life so accept it.

So, the producers decided to make an hour long program about what really happens if you leave everything behind for a carefree existence on a motorcycle in 1969, and they decided to be honest about it. Well, the show is an enigma because it's awful, slow, implausible, with moments of violence and unexplained fear that meld into undramatic melancholy and finally an unresolved departure. And that's what life has been like in the van. So, it's odd that I find the show at once awful and unwatchable, and yet a fair representation of life on the road.

*At 1 hour each, this is more like 50 episodes. But that's not saying much since in one episode about 10 minutes were used showing Bronson riding his motorcycle, drinking coffee, criticizing donuts, and pumping gas.

Hello, I Love You

I have always had my suspicions that the first song I recognized and understood as something my mother didn't custom deliver to me was a song by The Doors: Hello, I Love You.

This song was on their 1968 record Waiting For The Sun. Yes, the bio pic by Oliver Stone would have you believe Morrison was having a mental breakdown through 1968 into 1970, but The Doors released The Soft Parade, then Morrison Hotel and finally L.A. Woman* sequentially from 1969 to 1971, when Morrison died soon after I was born.

Shoeless Child Becomes Gypsy

To commemorate my 2000th blog post I'll return to early Oggy when my bike was my van and I still had no shoes but at least my socks were clean. 

Classic banana seat Schwinn circa 1976. My van was 7 years old when this photo was taken. We would meet in about 30 years.

A Red Sox patch and Salem Village patch too. The Miami Dolphins patch is because my grandparents were in Florida.

I think there's a psychological profile that could trace my preference for plaid bell bottom pants back to these days of innocence. So, that would mean my bell bottom pants are my 'Rosebud"
Interesting, today I would assert that because everyone has become obese, lard ass, heart disease aspirants that modern clothes do not fit my skinny ass, that clothes from 1977 were made for disco cocaine freaks who looked more like I do today, but a counter argument could be made that I am trying to regain the security I felt for my intact family by wearing the same clothes that I wore then. I don't actually like polyester disco shirts, but I admit they fit far better than any pret-a-porter fashion. But that might be obfuscation on my part to disguise my pining for the simplicity of youth. 

the answer is so obviously hidden under our noses

This would also mean that even if C.F.Kane was not diverted from his quest to the storage facility that held his wooden sled, that he would've found the sled and still not been satisfied. Because I have abundant plaid bell bottom pants now and still my heart aches like a lost bird in false spring. So, do I want those specific pants? No, the pants are a substitute for something lost forever, that can never be regained. Or do we merely bury the past under snow and junk of a lifetime, run from our roots, grow up, die, scratch on our coffins?
 
Comments?

1977-1980?

Once upon a time*...Oggy was not a disdainful grump.

I really can't be sure when this was taken but it was between the years of 1977 and 1980. Rumors suggest it could be 1974. It's odd that I do not recognize my own age in pictures. I look about 7 years old but I could be off by 3 years either way. Note to parents: write dates on the back of pictures. Of course everything is digitally time stamped today. I do recognize my beloved zip-up reindeer sweater. I think I tried to buy a similar sweater at a vintage clothes store recently but it didn't fit. I'd pay $100 to see what kind of pants I was wearing in this shot. Please let them be pinstripe bell bottoms! OR plaid polyester. Or maybe red denim to match my sweater.

This one I know was 1975

This has to be the only time my hair was clean...so maybe I was living with my mother in Boston. That would be 3rd grade. After I moved back to NH I stopped all hygiene.This period of time was carefree, I played a game where I'd toss a ball against a wall and catch it for hours. I tap danced impulsively and thought I would be a stand-up comedian or Broadway actor. I idolized Don Knotts.

1976?

Is the child the father of the man? Probably. We never stray too far from our roots.

"MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD"

          My heart leaps up when I behold
              A rainbow in the sky:
          So was it when my life began;
          So is it now I am a man;
          So be it when I shall grow old,
              Or let me die!
          The Child is father of the Man;
              I could wish my days to be
          Bound each to each by natural piety.

---Wordsworth 

Dear god, a comic book shirt?

*The consensus is 1977 or 1978 and this may have been taken at a Sears photo counter, not for school photo day. That would explain why I don't look like a drug addict.

Ancient Music

I was so delirious and sick recently that I swear I was in a high mountain market surrounded by volcanoes shopping for limes to cure my ills, while the entire town stopped and watched me walk around, gawking openly at my hair and blank expression, and this song came over a nearby radio right after a tune by The Outfield. The Eighties Gone to Seed. I thought I was hallucinating. I was wearing a bright white Ecuadorian peasant shirt, sweating poison into my dirty boxer shorts, heaving, tired of the lies and self deceit, twisted together in a ribbon I tie around my ego like a present for my Id. But the song stuck with me and I suspected it was Roxette so I had to listen to all songs by Roxette or Taylor Dayne or Kim Wilde.

It's technically from the '90s but anyone who grew up in the '80s will hear the influence of Pat Benetar, Bonnie Tyler, and Belinda Carlisle. It's actually a generic ballad with a substandard verse, but with an anthemic chorus like this and a gorgeous vocalist you can leave the verse alone. This has elements of Cher too, Wilson Phillips, Peter Cetera, Nelson, Heart: all the big heavily produced rock hits of that time, but the problem is that in 1991, the pretty pop bubble had burst and the next generation had started to eat up a less polished/produced type of music coming from the North West Coast. Belinda Carlisle survived the decade transition with some dignity as did The Rolling Stones and REM and Whitney Houston and Dire Straits, but there was a four year period, 1989-1992 when the most over produced power ballads were being thrown on the radio. It was like an Arms Race between international music studios each trying to produce the most epic song and it destroyed all hope for realistic bands like Culture Club and REO Speedwagon, and The Cars, whose singles suddenly sounded dated. It was like a new Berlin Wall of music had been constructed and all low budget acts such as Tracy Chapman and Cyndi Lauper would not be allowed to cross, but this wall only lasted long enough to cull some of the fading acts like Def Leppard and flavor of the months like Debbie Gibson. 

The epic song has a few characteristics but the one I want to point out is the key change at the last chorus, sometimes called a "truck driver key change" because it musically evokes the action when a big stunt truck is going up a steep hill in order to plunge off a cliff dramatically and is losing speed and the driver must downshift or stall. See? Songs are meant to end with the listener flying off a cliff, not simply limping up to the edge and tumbling down the jagged side to the next song and this modulation gives them the extra RPMs to get you airborne. In Roxette's case the verse is in D minor. The chorus is in the relative Major F. It's a modulation, no doubt, but the notes don't change, just the tonic focus. That's why it sounds epic...sad to triumphant...minor to major with the same key signature. But the really epic key change is when there is a "pianissimo" chorus in F at 2:30 followed by several choruses when the key changes from F up a whole step to G at 2:43. This is what producers do when they frivolously want to change a song length from 3:00 to 4:00 and also to get the listener off. And it works... for a while.

It was the last gasp of the '80s between the fading of Milli Vanilli and the rise of Pearl Jam and Nirvana, this strange mini-era of huge ballads that only Jim Steinman had ever attempted before. Now lesser writers were trying their hand and basically creating skin deep anthems that would have no lasting appeal or any kind of art to the language. Very 10th grade lyrics. When you listen to them you think, "Hey, good song." Well, the second time you listen to it you don't hear anything new. The third time you listen to it you skip to the next song about half way through. That's the difference. Bat Out of Hell has songs that are not skin deep. Steinman and Meatloaf sort of approached it like the genre itself was skin deep, but they we're going to be ridiculously emotional and serious about it. Nelson approached it with a casual brilliance esthetic, but the big difference is creativity. Mr. Big had one of the greatest guitar players of all time with Paul Gilbert, strong voices, pretty chins, nice hair, and they managed to compose a single rock anthem that is super catchy, but is forever trapped in 1991. Bat Out of Hell is pretty much timeless because the creativity was very high and the authenticity was also very high. The songs aren't quite as "catchy" but that's the sacrifice of the Steinman anthem. It's also why a singer like Otis Redding can not be eclipsed by a Michael Buble singing Otis Redding songs; the authenticity for Buble is derivative even though his talent is approximately equivalent. I mean, if something like sex appeal or charisma could be taught then wouldn't Marylin Monroe and Vivien Leigh be long forgotten? I think the elite cultural icons started out with supernatural gifts that they developed until they personify Soul or Sex for the rest of us mortals.

This is all to prime myself to write my epic review of 1985 music as I survived long enough to write a 30 year anniversary music essay. That means listening to Shout by Tears for Fears today is like listening to The Ballad of Davy Crockett back in 1985. Or how about this....just think about this...if they remake the movie Back to the Future I, then Marty will be sent 30 years back in time to the long ago year of 1985. Just imagine how out of touch a teenager today would be if he were sent back to the time you were a teenager...and how amazed you were when you watched Marty walk around that clock tower plaza for the first time. Teenagers today must perceive Ronald Reagan as a confirmed lunatic, a prop parody of the political insanity they inherited, Sarah Palin's senile bastard step-father. "How did our parents elect and reelect a goofy actor who could not remember if he authorized the sale of Colombian cocaine in Los Angeles to fund a genocidal military rebellion in Nicaragua? How did the same delusional ex-actor directly and openly fund and applaud a Guatemalan military genocide of poor corn farmers? It would be like us electing Adam Sandler as President and having him declare covert war on Venezuela's homeless population using money generated from blow jobs by Brazilian hookers given to CIA Secret Service men...and then forgetting he did it."

Note: Roxette is not from Berlin, Germany and is not related to the band Berlin, which is from Los Angeles, U.S.A. No, Roxette is a Swedish band and this video is filmed on location in Stockholm. Milli Vanilli, however, was from West Germany.

Screenshot Trivia #4

All the clues are here

Who has the balls to admit they know the gem this is from? One of the all-time under appreciated low budget flicks. Painful to look at those white high-top Reebok tennis shoes, with the agonizingly dated velcro strap on the top. And the pale washed jeans. The Carrera Sun-Glasses. Painful. You could not get a production designer today to accurately stage this single shot to capture this era. This brings back many memories.