They Tell Me That The Valley Looks Good In Snow

I got a call from a friend who's in Yosemite Valley... He's enjoying the beauty of the valley in the Winter and staying with a "friend" at the Ahwanee Lodge. Lucky guy.

I've never seen the valley in snow. Perhaps one day.

What do you do when the pain of wanting something you do not have and probably will never have makes you choke up and feel like the child who hid in the closet and was never looked for?

Shel Silverstein wrote a song about that kind of regret and I don't think I could listen to it now without breaking down.

Aw well... hope is the thing with feathers...

Here There Be Dragons

Y'know those old maps made back in the 1600's? The ones in the museums? I do...

I remember those old maps and the fanciful names given to fanciful lands which actually didn't exist. Proportion was just beginning to be understood in those days and the art of surveying was quite crude. The maps were usually just approximations of here-say and guesses. However, the one thing I loved about first seeing those maps was the term which I once saw put in the unknown lands to the north of Siberia. The cartographer had written "Here There Be Dragons" and had drawn a nice dragon curled up upon rocks.

"Here There Be Dragons"

Doesn't that describe something which sends chills up your spine? The unknown land where anything can happen. The special place where a man can find his fortune or his demise. Sinbad and his voyages of discovery.

I think this is why man invents things... there is a run-away curiosity within our hearts which fires our seeking of the extremities of known space. It's funny I never thought it could be so simple as that. I kept thinking it was a nobler reason. Now I know it doesn't have to be.

Edmund Hillary hit it upon the head when he said, "Because It's There".

What We See With Perspective

My father came and visited me today. He only stayed a few minutes and we chatted about this and that and other unimportant stuff. What we were really there to discuss was just exactly how unhappy he is with his health. How much pain he's been in after a "fall down" accident which has given him a huge black eye and a scar on his forehead. He's been going through a lot lately. Many different small but serious things have been going on with him, he's been in pain and he's been inconvenienced by his body not doing what he wants it to do.

Well, he's 80+ and I think he's doing really well compared to many his age but that's not what he wants to hear. He wants sympathy and he wants understanding. I see that. I see it - but I'm stuck here with a perspective of our relationship which is left over from my childhood. It is of me (the son) as his child looking to him (the father) to make it all well. I look at him as the sick man I am who is finding that every day above ground is a blessing. I haved tried to stay grateful and I'm unable to give too much sympathy to him in fear that it will lead to pity and I cannot afford to become mired in self-pity. I am also stuck upon this question of perspective. How does a child, even an adult child, reach out and lift up a parent? How can I be the strong one, the nurturing one, the parent to my parent? There is a dysfunction here. It is not what one thinks about when young.

I keep wanting my father to continue to be hearty and healthy. I keep looking for him to become the "Father William" of Lewis Carroll fame. I don't know if I can deal with a sick and weakened father. I know I cannot reach out and nurture him without giving my psyche a serious twist.

I'm gonna have to think about this...

And while I do, I'll share "Father William" with those who haven't heard or read it. It is one of Lewis Carroll's most famous poems.



You Are Old Father William

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment -- one shilling a box --
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the tend of your nose --
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.

~~ Lewis Carroll ~~

Who Will Buy???

Does anybody remember "Oliver!", the Broadway musical? If you do, then you know that one clear song in the middle when Oliver Twist wakes up in the bedroom of his new benefactor, realizes that he's sleeping in clean sheets, in a warm room and throws the window open and sings,


"Who will buy this wonderful morning, such a sky you never did see? Who will tie it up in a ribbon, and put it in a box for me?"




I feel that kind of fresh and alive today. I think it is because I was meditating on life and the new book I'm reading by Eckhardt Tolle called "A New World". It is a fascinating book in that it seems to be cutting a path through my consciousness and creating a new awareness even as I read it...

I recommend the book highly.

War Victim

War Victim


It changed him.

The manchild gone to war and death never came home.
Home to a wife he couldn't love in ways she longed for,
home to sons and daughters who looked for affection
openly and demanded a reckoning of his parenthood's
rationed care.

High overlooking the carnage and finding nothing
they could grasp, they left - - angry and injured.

He's grown into an old man, but still he is the boy gone to war.
Never spoken--the things he did and saw as a manchild
lost in the war he fights in the days of his mind.

With swollen belly and shrunken soul,
he lives a death seen but never felt.
Heard but never lived.

He's log strong but inflexible.
Never able to say I love you.
Never able to say.

Marked with Cain's hidden tragedy, wandering a
wasteland peopled with suited shirts and narrow-minded chanting,
he seeks an oblivion that is never afforded him.
Just to be left alone with his wooden store-indian heart - - hard and brittle.

He shatters under the demands of fatherhood.

Now his children grow into the hole-hearted
wasteland his living leaves them and find,
that they too are war victims. Victims of a war gone
long before the midnight struggle spawned them.

There in the moonless dark that spares the barricaded assault,
they hide defeated.

Pills and liquors their only solace,

they look to their children's rooms and wonder about coming war.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Maca Root : Have I Really Come To This?

Here I am, gentle idiot that I am, feeling rather bad about the lack of energy I'm experiencing of late... I sleep a lot, I'm constantly lying in bed, listening to music or an audiobook and wishing I were healthier.

So I heard about Maca... an herb from the Andes which is supposed to help bring your energy level up. I decided to try it. It's not cheap, a one-month supply costs $27, but I figured I'd give it a try and see.



After 5 days I can say that I am either experiencing more energy from the Maca or a coincidentally pleasant upswing in my normal energy rhythms.

I shall not really decide until I've ridden out the whole month of this stuff (I'm taking pressed herbal tablets) and can see any long-term effect beyond anything I would have to call incidental or anecdotal.

I've also heard this will increase my libido... now that might be nice... anybody interested (anybody at all??)

The Mother Of Invention

I had a frozen turkey. It was a 9 pounder (about 4 Kilos) which was left over from the holidays. Strange remnant of flesh, it sat like a rock in the freezer and interfered with my using the freezer compartment. So I decided to get rid of it.

So, I put it into the refrigerator compartment about a week ago to let it thaw. Yesterday I realized that it was fully thawed and if I didn't cook it soon, it would go bad and be inedible. For some stupid reason, I put the turkey into the oven at 9 PM.

I wasn't thinking. A roasted turkey takes approx. 15 minute per pound. A 9 pounder would take about two and a half hours to roast and then must cool before being refrigerated. With the turkey in the oven, it would take up to midnite or one A.M. before I could put the meat away and go to bed.

Not an option. I was tired.

So I tried something new. I set the temperature of the oven to 200° and went to bed. I figured that at 200°, the turkey wouldn't burn and as long as the temp of the meat went over 165° bacteria would be killed and the meat would cook. The temp was under boiling-point, the meat should stay moist. Then I went to sleep.

This morning, the heady smell of roasted turkey woke me. I got up and went to the kitchen, opened the oven and took out the turkey. I uncovered the roasting pan and was astounded to see a turkey cooked through and through and yet so tender that even the leg meat, the toughest meat, was cooked and ready to fall off the bone. The breast meat is moist, even the back meat is moist.

I'm gonna remember this technique. I think next time I'll cook it at 400° for an hour to finish... that way the skin will brown.

All in all... tasty.

Bare Trees

Deep Depression is a really horrible place to live.

I must confess, as I haven't confessed to many that I am mentally unwell... I have what has been diagnosed as Type II Bi-Polar Disorder. It's a type of manic/depression which is easier to live with than the standard type but not fun.

Basically I get depressed, suicidally depressed and it has affected many of the things in my life. Probably one of the greatest reasons why I never finished college (started three times) or ever made a serious go of any business I've tried to start and own is that eventually, I ended up in bed with the covers over my head and in the foetal position.

Now, I'm not so bad. They've found a drug which helps and I'm happy to say that I haven't tried to kill myself in ages. I live on a much more even keel but there's a hitch.

My stability is dependant upon keeping the amount of drug in my bloodstream at a constant level so that my poor brain doesn't go wiggy.

The amount of drugs in my system depend upon absorbsion and retention of the pills. This has been badly affected by the antibiotics I have been taking for an infection. My blood levels are down...



In short, I'm depressed and unhappy and I've spent today thinking about suicide for the first time in many months.

I feel like I want to cry but cannot, I feel like I want to fly away but cannot. I want to find oblivion somehow.

Never enough morphine around when you need it.

At times like this I pull out my Bare Trees album...

And I think about Cathy, the wife who never was.

Maybe if I play it loud enough, I'll be able to cry.

Ear Candy! What's Wrong With Ear Candy?

Tell me, isn't "Everything But The Girl" the greatest ear- candy- trying- to- be- relevant soft pop music ever?

If you listen to it enough, you almost believe it's important stuff, like a signpost pointing towards new territory.

At the very least it's fantastic "make out" music.

Goin' To The Chapel...

My friends Tim & Kathy are having their children christened today in the Anglican chapel which they attend. They are dear friends and I wouldn't miss this occasion for the world. The twins are almost 1 year old and I'm so happy to see them glow with the joys of parenting.

But now I've got to get dressed and go out in public. Formal occasion even. I'm so actually shy in person that I'm actually sweating about it.

The clothes are on the bed, ready to be donned. The body has been showered and powdered and the coiffure is "perfect". Now I have to get dressed and go to the party...

Difficult.

"Please God, let me be myself, not worry about being "liked" and just relax into the moment."

I think that this would be a good mantra for the day.

Never Underestimate The Power Of The Meme

A friend challenged me to make a list of some things in my life...

Here it is Ryan...

Four jobs you've had:
1. Cab Driver ~ Listen phokes, I'm sure it feels good to over-tip your cabbie but unless he's gotten you away from the police or helped you save your marriage, a simple 15% is plenty. When I was a cabbie I used to be slightly contempuous of the over-tippers (though I would take their money).

2. Bartender at a high-volume singles bar... On the one hand the tips were good and I made a lot of money. On the other hand I generally had to deal with horney, desperate women at 2 AM who would "settle" for the chubby bartender 'cause he was kinda cute and they were drunk enough to excuse themselves. After the first one (when you feel kinda grateful and lucky), and the second one (when you feel kinda happy for the sex) and the third one (when you feel sorry for her) it all starts to get old...

3. Record Store Clerk/Manager ~ Tower Records... no money in it but really fun and I was in a slacker mood when I signed on. The day I knew I had to quit was the day I was straightening up the CD's in the Rock section and overheard a 15 year-old say to her friend, "Did you know that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?". I remember getting very drunk that night.

4. Chef/Cook/Sous Chef ~ Too many places to name. The last day as a cook was when I came to work and found that the IRS had padlocked the restaurant. Siezure... A lot of the equipment in the kitchen was mine too... I lost it all. Sometimes I wish I'd had a passion for programming.

Four places you've lived:
1. Palo Alto, CA (yeah... I know... Yuppie Scum from Yuppieville! But I swear it wasn't that bad when I was a kid! We had a Woolworth's and everything! Later, the money poured in and sensible hometown was drowned in an influx of Yuppies...)
2. San Francisco, CA ~ During College (SF State) and then Chef School after I dropped out of college and then when I worked in my first two restaurants.
3. Monterey, CA (and Pacific Grove & Seaside etc.) I lived on the Peninsula for 6 miserable years.
4. South Lake Tahoe ~ It was a good place to work on my craps technique.




Four websites you visit daily:
1. RadioParadise.com (what's there to say? best music stream on the web)
2. iwon.com (I'm a sucker for free giveaways ~ besides they have news and a good trivia game)
3. Wikipedia.com (yeah... I know... strange geeks who read Wikipedia for fun are weird!)
4. netflix.com (I'm trying to rate all the movies I've seen... I'm at about 7,000 and counting)

Four television shows you love to watch:
1. Gilmore Girls (it's almost like a melodrama, but the humor and weirdness save it from that)
2. Dead Like Me (only reason to subscribe to HBO there is)
3. Grey's Anatomy (Katherine Heigl (pant, pant)!!!!)
4. House, M.D. ~ (Hugh Laurie is funny... you almost like the asshole)

Four of your favorite foods:
1. Evaporate Milk (I cannot explain it, I drink it from the can)
2. Beef
3. Sushi
4. Breakfast Burritos (a good one ~ and they're hard to find sometimes ~ can save a bad day)


Four albums you can't live without (at least for the moment):
1. Nick Drake ~ Pink Moon
2. Steely Dan ~ The Royal Scam
3. Yes ~ Tales From Topographic Oceans (yeah... I know... weird Prog Rock... but I LOVE it!)
4. David Wilcox ~ Home Again (or any of his albums... he never ceases to make me cry)

Four places you'd rather be:
1. Downtown Reno (with money to burn)
2. Big Sur, CA
3. Central Park, Manhattan
4. Sailing... (preferably over warm water)

OK... there's the list... TAG! YER IT!

The Short Life Of The Lifetime Supply

One day, many years ago. In fact it was so long ago that I still believed that there was a president in the White House who isn't owned by "Them, Inc." So many years ago I still felt young. So many y... you get the drift. It was then that I was sold a "Lifetime's Supply" of Bic Lighters.

You know those nice comfortable Bic Lighters? The one's which fit right into your pocket and seem to last forever? Yes, the plastic giveaway things which come in so many colors. I love them. I believe the man who designed the things should be either given a medal for excellent design or burned at the stake for being in league with Satan... whichever.

So, as I was saying, there I was with my "lifetime supply" (actually only one gross (144) of the wee beasties) and it was a not inconsiderable amount. Of course they would have been used up in just a handful of years if I had continued to smoke but shortly after being given the lighters, I quit. I went from a two-pack a day habit to nothing and slugged it out with withdrawls towards freedom from nicotene. Yeah, good for me... but the point is that I ceased to use the lighters all that much. I would use them to light candles, occasional sticks of incense, other people's cigarettes, barbeques, etc. but these uses are not anywhere near the amount I used to use a lighter when I smoked. So I stopped using the lighters much. After 10 years or so, I was beginning to believe that it really was a "lifetime supply" of lighters. I started to give them away. I started to intentionally leave them in bars and at parties. I made a habit of lighting other people's cigarettes as a rule when in public. I wanted to be free of the things.


But then yesterday, I finished up using the last one. The pink Bic Lighter which had been sitting in my drawer finally refused to light. The last one was done. I was out of lighters and had FINALLY depleted that "lifetime supply" I sat in my room that evening feeling something missing from my life. One factor which had been a part of my existence was diminished. I told myself that it didn't matter. I had plenty of matches, books and books of the things. I really didn't need a lighter. But that pile of available lights had made my life feel more comforted, more secure and I was uncomfortable.

Irrational as I know it was, I still was not able to feel like matches could fill the void. Nothing will do but that plastic and metal ovoid cylinder of butane and flint. Nothing but a Bic will do.

I went out today and purchased four.

I Just Looked Around, And He Was Gone

"...and when you stand up for what you do believe, be prepared to be shot down!!"
~What About Me? ~ by Quicksilver Messenger Service~



Martin Luther King Jr.
January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968

"Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin,
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people
But you know the good they die young.
I just turned around, and he was gone."

I try not to have heroes. I look to myself for freedom and strength. I feel we all should. But if were to have a hero. It would be this man.

Musical Heroes I Have Known

Why is it that the music of this age doesn't move me the way the music I listened to as a teenager did? I don't think it's the music because there is so much good stuff out there.

I remember listening to my favorite albums in the dark and letting the music and the lyrics take me away. Now I rarely find a song which "sends" me anymore.

The only thing to move me recently is Joe Jackson's older album called "Laughter & Lust". Althought this was released ten years ago, I hadn't gotten around to listening to it until a friend gave me a copy. I took it home and found myself transported by the music. For a few minutes I felt like I was back in my old room in my parent's house. This is not the first time that Joe's music has done this for me. He's made more than a dozen albums over the years and I can put four of them now in my list of favorites. One of the things which sends me about the guy is that he seems to be a chameleon. He never sticks to one style and you can feel his show-tune and classical background. He's brave, he has never shied away from going out on a limb or making a controversial statement. His salsa album "Jumping Jive" showed that he is comfortable in almost any style and when he stuck his thumb in the eyes of MTV by refusing to make any more videos after his first one, many predicted his demise.

Well, he's still here. For a quarter of a century now he's been doing what he does best, make good music and take it to the people.

Here's to you Joe Jackson. You are one of my musical heroes.

WASABI!

I love Wasabi! Or at least I thought I did. Let me
try to explain...

I have spent many years going to Japanese restaurants
and sushi bars because I love fresh food and raw fish
and I love dipping my fish in Wasabi. I loved the way
the powerful stuff cleared my sinuses and made my
eyes water... I loved the way it made my stomach feel
all nice and toasty. I love the fact that I can "take it"
when my wimpy friends can only put a small amount
on their foods and then get a weirdly painful look on
their faces when they actually got a hit of the stuff on
their palates.

Or at least I love dipping my food in the green paste
which comes with the food. I found out recently through
a lot of articles I read that what we believe is Wasabi is
actually mostly horseradish mixed with a very small
amount of Wasabi and then colored green.

Wasabi is expensive, it used to be that it only grew in
the cold mountain streams of Japan and nobody had
figured out how to grow it in commercial amounts so
that real Wasabi would cost you about $60.00 a kilo
(rather dear price don't you think?) and it came with
its own armed guard. This has led most restaurants to
use the green powder which they CALL Wasabi to save
some money.



Recently, however, a man in Oregon discovered how to
grow these cute green tubers hydroponically in huge
vats of cold water with nutrients in it. He grows a huge
amount of these tubers and he's making a fortune selling
the stuff to Japanese restaurants all over the world
(including Japan). He even has a farm called Pacific Farms
and a the link posted leads to his website where he will sell
fresh Wasabi by mail to almost anywhere in the USA by
mail-order.

Being a bit of a food snob, I purchased some fresh Wasabi
and bragged to my friends that I was going to be eating
"The Real Stuff" the next time I went to a Japanese
restaurant. I became a bore on the subject and I'm sure
my friend wished I had never heard of the stuff.

So I went to a Japanese restaurant recently and took my
fresh Wasabi with me. I mixed the Wasabi paste with soy
sauce and put it in my dipping dish and I sat back in
anticipation of a great eating experience.

And so, I discovered that I don't really like the "real"
Wasabi nearly as much as I like the green paste which the
restaurants serve. It has more flavor, it is easier to get to
"stick" to the morsels of sushi and sashimi, and it isn't
nearly as bitter as real Wasabi. Maybe it's an acquired
taste. After all, it took me years to appreciate the power
of the fake Wasabi, maybe I need time.

One thing is truly for sure, my friends won't get any more
boring lectures on "Real Wasabi" from me for awhile.

Mother Superior Jumped The Gun

"Mother Superior Jumped The Gun"

Why is it that I love that line? That weird old Beatles' classic
rattles through my brain and I am so amazed that we baby
boomers had the temerity to criticize the punks for their
musical taste. The Beatles' are considered the iconic
foundation of the modern pop musical pantheon and here
are the strange lyrics and bizarre imagery of "Happiness Is
a Warm Gun" to prove that they were not beyond the
excessive self-indulgences of which so many of their peers
were guilty. Of course they weren't nearly as amazingly
self-destructive as many have proven to be.



Look at the sad end of Gary Glitter who is facing a death
penalty in Vietnam for having sex with children.

Look at Keith Moon, who died at the tender age of 32 after
living 17 years of his life pushing his body and rock drumming
to the limits of reason and beyond.

Compared to others, the Beatles were pikers. John Lennon
may have spent his last years in a heroin haze at The Dakota
in New York, but at least he didn't get arrested for showing
his penis to a cop in a public bathroom in Los Angeles like
George Michaels did. And please tell me why the fact that
he is gay shocked people. People knew, lots of people knew.

I guess what this all leads to is a statement about the quality
of living you have to find when the monetary limits are lifted.
More money in your life doesn't equate to more happiness.
Look at poor Jim Morrison. Went in unhappy, died unhappy.

I guess the real joy in life is not watching these talented
comets flash across our media's attention but being able
to have a good laugh at ourselves when they have gone.