Summing up

I didn't find work in St. Anthony and September 1st was the day I planned on leaving for Gros Morne. So, here are some parting shots with which I display my sentimental bent. In Mexico, I was a broken man sitting, sweating, on the concrete steps of a baseball stadium somewhere north of Gurerro Negro, maybe in Rosarito, watching ball players who were 7 years past their prime struggle around the bases and overthrow the cutoff man. A grandfather, probably 50 years old walked off with his daughter and the moment she reached for his hand, unseen and without turning his head he reached for hers and together they trusted one another without words and I wept into my 10 peso beer and thought, 'Ah, Oggy, you may climb the highest peaks in the world but there is one happiness you will never know.' I did not take a picture of that moment but if you wait long enough your enemies with pass you in the river and lost memories will return on the wings of sinister storm clouds and here in St. Anthony I saw a boy and his grandfather walk toward the wharf and I grabbed that moment for my treasure chest of dreams...and as a reminder and reflective admission that I have not fooled myself of the source of true contentment.

The other picture is of Oggy trying to sew little dots of velcro onto a bug screen to keep the bugs from flying into the escape hatch. This failed for a variety of reasons but it also led me to another attempt that failed and now the third attempt will work if I want to sew 8 ft of velcro strips onto the screen by hand. That may take place on a rainy day.

The next is a picture of the van far off in the distance near the municipal wharf. The locals tolerate my presence there and I try to pay it back with litter picking and by fixing the toilet and plumbing around the grounds. But at least no asshole with his BMW has driven up and yelled, "WHEN ARE YOU LEAVING?" like happened many times in Los Angeles. I said, "As soon as I see the sign that SAYS THIS IS YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING PARKING SPACE!"

And they would mutter their bourguois responses, "Hippy pissing in the hedges, lazy, dirty, call the cops...etc..." and I would simmer my resentments in a miserable shirtless existence as I struggle with a rusted nut on the exhaust.

No, it's different here.

The last picture is of me on the Grenfell trail overlook where the doctor and his wife and a few key players in the hospital saga have been IMPLANTED INTO STONE because when you do what Grenfell did then you get to do whatever you want with your ashes.

Internet usage will be sparse for the next few days or weeks. I have a lead on a vacuum modulator in Cornerbrook, maybe the last in all of North America, so that is a future destination.

St. Anthony Street Clean-up a Success!

Dennison and I did our part to repay the hospitality of St. Anthony (We freely partake of their water and internet) by walking from the Marina to Fisherman's Point picking up litter. This is not "pollution", which is more like oil spills, but Tim Horton's (Dennison says, "Bloody Tim Whoreton's") coffee cups and straws and cigarette butts. We are a frivilous animal with coarse pursuits and it shows in our respect of the land and the resources. The sailors told of meeting floating metal cargo containers that fall off cargo ships. The ships can expect to lose 5% of their containers and maybe they will be retrieved or maybe a sailboat will run into one or maybe it will sink into the abyss. For what? So, Americans or Italians can trade shoes and belts and other gadgets. This is grotesque to me, a grotesque and irresponsible waste of resources and energy. The Chinese slave who sits at her table for 12 hours sewing Mickey Mouse Pillowcases will see her life's work drowned in the Caspian Sea. IT'S A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT@!

We gathered 5 bags of trash, some home insulation, a tennis ball, and the thanks of a local tour boat captain. Then Dennison served some pressure cooked beans in tomato sauce and I contributed moldy flaxseed bread.

In sampling the news in the aftermath of the storm I see nothing has changed in my absence; America is still obsessed with celebrity porn, internet comments still scrape the bottom of the barrel of civility, and the pot cooking the frogs is slowly reaching a boil while the frogs spit in each other's eyes with curses and venom. It's every man for himself and the funny thing is that it's been this way for a long time. I want no part of it.

Sinister Mystery Cloud

I was babbling to Dennison about hurricanes I've seen in Texas and Florida when a flash came back to me like a strange pain in the prostate that you can't explain...
And the flash was a vision, maybe a worm hole eclipse, of my brother and I in Maine or NH playing a game...I thought it was called Hurricane...but then I remembered, no, that particular game involved a hurricane or "sinister mystery cloud" but it was called "Bermuda Triangle". You rolled dice to move in that drunken circle and once in a while you would spin the board of something and depending on the outcome you would move the storm. And the storm was on a grid and if your boat was near the storm then magnets would suck the boat in and that was it for you and the crew. But you have more than one ship so you try again...

This was a memory that I guess I have kept safe in my box of nostalgia that women with their evil designs and men with their grotesque ethics CAN NOT OPEN. But since the reaper has knocked on my door more than once this trip I think I can safely share it. We're playing the game and my brother or father move the hurricane slowly across the grid and it nears my ship and my excitement, not anxiety or fear, but genuine excitement is greater than a class 4 Tropical storm named Oggy. Maybe I'm wearing Red Sox pajamas and maybe my mother is present nearby. I don't know. But my excitement at the ominous and inexorable movements of this storm fix me to the moment...it is life or death, the whim of the storm...the fate of Neptune, the delicate touch of God that may forever suck me into the abyss.

This game haunts me now in the reaches of my van. The rain came last night and I, naked, fought with it and the many leaks I can't fix. My eye is nearly clear enough to drive again though I would instantly take a job here in St. Anthony if offered. Maybe a population of 3000, honest folks, don't lock doors, work hard and raise families with neighbors working together. When your work only benefits your neighbor then there is never the class warfare that has carpenters on hourly wages for strangers who desire sun decks. That's an abomination that is foreign to the people of St. Anthony. The idea you would bid on a job to work for a stranger who made their money in E-commerce is grotesque to them like the idea of private property is to the Esquimaux. I'd open a music shop with free lessons with any purchase of instrument. The streets would be filled with penny whistle melodies and concertina tunes.

For now, I await the destiny of the mystery cloud to pass and possibly suck my metallic 1969 econoline van with all its leaks and flaws and flakes of flesh dug into the worn Indian rug. Will it pass close enough or allow me to pass with a roll of a 5 or 3?

Rare species

Thrombolites don't get many PETA activists getting arrested in their defense but they are the earliest form of primitve life and they are endangered. I'm sitting on the back of a thrombolite here. They are actually collections of dense bacteria disguised as rock like I'm disguised as Oggy, the biologist from the future.

And here is the dwarf hawksbeard which I thought was a rare plant only found on Burnt Cape, Newfoundland ecological preserve but also seems to live in california, portland and other places so maybe I've been misled. It is noteworthy because it blooms once in its life and then dies. The plant lives in no soil, only a thick bed of gravel limestone. I would recommend it to avid botanists but not casual flower lovers because everything looks like is still growing. This Dwarf Hawksbeard is as big as it gets.

Burnt Cape ecological preserve looks like this:

There is a huge sea cave under there and a phenomena called Cannon Holes that look like big holes in the side of the cliffs. I wandered down there to ponder the universe. Sometimes, when the ocean is calm, there is a huge seawater pond that is safe to swim in. The day I was there it was not safe or warm or calm.

Quotes to Inspire

I don't want you to think that hurricane is going to make me go easy on anyone. The Gulf coast, Mexico, Honduras, all have had their dose of global climate collapse and only a total destruction of D.C. by hurricane force dust storms will raise the eyebrows of the whores and puppets who stink up their $1000 alpaca wool suits while selling out the American man to Chinese pharaohs. So, here are some quotes to get your minds working on what to do when the shit crumbles...

"Cry wolf, you men of little conscience! Ignore the fact that while there have been deer there have always been wolves and that until your coming, wolves, men, and deer lived in mutual adjustment with each other for more centuries than we can count. Cry wolf! No one will give you the lie. The wolves cannot answer. The last survivors of the Peoples of the Deer cannot reply." - Farley Mowat People of the Deer

"Yes there is truth my dear boy, but the doctrine that you desire, the absolute perfect, comprehensive and instructive doctrine, does not exist. You should not yearn for this my friend, but only for self-perfection. The Godhead is in yourself, not in theories and in books. Truth must be lived, not taught." - Hermann Hesse - Glass Bead Game

Last night Dennison held council on his "Tahiti" sailboat and he pulled out a book he was reading and how he described it is worth repeating, though this isn't verbatim...(imagine an accent like John Cleese or a less cheeky Hugh Grant...)

"This book, Men of the cliffs and caves, is about hermits who lived during the Han Dynasty in China between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D., and while that may sound fabulously obscure it is actually a fascinating read. Their philosophy, the hermits, was that during a time when there is a good leader then you are obligated to serve society but during a time of a bad leader you were obligated to become a hermit and remove yourself to live in solitude in a cliff dwelling or cave where you would ponder the universe, write, pray what have you. Now, some of the hermits were absolute scoundrels who only became hermits to gain reputation that would aid them as political demons but others were genuine."

At this point is say, "I identify with the much of what you say, Dennison, please continue."

Dennison stands and refills my porcelain tea cup from something that looks Chinese but is probably a Thai porcelain kettle. On a sailboat! The loose leaf tea is good, from Thailand, with a licorice aftertaste, oily and enhanced when I breath in sharply which I do often since my adventure on the motor-less boat has left me uncertain of my movements...

"Thank you, Oggy, I will. So, it's like this, if Colin Powell the U.S. secretary of state for the last Bush dynasty, excuse me, term, had gone to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003 and instead of arguing for an invasion of Iraq based on flawed and mostly manufactured evidence against that country, he had stood up and said. (Dennison stands up and pretends he is a humbled Colin Powell) 'Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the security council. I'd like to announce my resignation as secretary of state as it has become clear to me that this administration is a sham and corrupt beyond salvation. I will henceforth be moving to an undisclosed cave in the Ozark mountains where I will live alone on nuts and ginseng as I ponder the universe. I thank you for your attention. Good bye.'

We three, David, Julien, and I laugh at the unlikelihood of this happening. Dennison laughs casually and continues.

"If he had done that then the world would now be a much different place. (I begin to say something and Dennison raises a finger to silence me.) Instead, Instead, he was a whore...and a puppet and the hand that moved his hands and the fingers that wagged his lips were too powerful for him to overcome. So he obeyed them and fed the world a monumental lie. The only 'intelligence failure' was on the part of the American People to not recognize a screw job that left the country in financial ruins while global development corporations like Halliburton made off like bandits. And this book traces the cause and effect of hermits living 2200 years ago to the current state of the world."

And the nonchalance with which Dennison spoke was culture defined.

Now go do something worth quoting...