Hills and deer

I run along a 10 mile path along the lake. Outside the lake you have the hills, and the hills are steep and beautiful. I rode past a local who was walking to the spring and after the traditional "Merry Christmas," he said "You got it, almost to the top." It was a wicked, steep hill. And then I saw the whole City and the river they call the lake and you would not know there is any bustle or hustle. I was soon lost in the hills. I asked a man in dread locks, walking with his family, how to get back. Of course, they asked me what I wanted to see. In my life, when lost, people always assume I am on a journey. "You can take the green belt, or you can head back to the spring," he said. The point was  don't miss anything.

I made it back across down the hills and past the river and over the bridge.

They came to the town for the energy, for the hills and the spring. The birds smile, and the deer are well-fed.

Roger Ebert and First Blood

"What we can't buy in this movie is the message. It's handled in too heavy-handed a way. Stallone plays a returned Vietnam veteran, a Green Beret skilled in the art of jungle survival and fighting, and after a small-town police force sadistically mishandles him, he declares war on the cops. All of this is set up in scenes of great physical power and strength and the central sections of the movie, with Stallone and the cops stalking each other through the forests of the Pacific Northwest, have a lot of authority. But then the movie comes down to a face-off between Stallone and his old Green Beret commander (Richard Crenna), and the screenplay gives Stallone a long, impassioned speech to deliver, a speech in which he cries out against the injustices done to him and against the hippies who demonstrated at the airport when he returned from the war, etc. This is all old, familiar material from a dozen other films clichés recycled as formula. Bruce Dern did it in “Coming Home” and William Devanein “Rolling Thunder”. Stallone is made to say things that would have much better been implied; Robert De Niro, in “Taxi Driver”, also plays a violent character who was obviously scarred by Vietnam, but the movie wisely never makes him talk about what happened to him. Some things are scarier and more emotionally moving when they're left unsaid. 

So the ending doesn't work in “First Blood”. It doesn't necessarily work as action, either. By the end of the film, Stallone has taken on a whole town and has become a one-man army, laying siege to the police station and the hardware store and exploding the pumps at the gas station. This sort of spectacular conclusion has become so commonplace in action movies that I kind of wonder, sometimes, what it would be like to see one end with a whimper rather than a bang. 

Until the last twenty or thirty minutes, however, “First Blood” is a very good movie, well-paced, and well-acted not only by Stallone (who invests an unlikely character with great authority) but also by Crenna and Brian Dennehy, as the police chief. The best scenes come as Stallone's on the run in the forest, using a hunting knife with a compass in the handle, and living off the land. At one point he's trapped on a cliffside by a police helicopter, and we really feel for this character who has been hunted down through no real fault of his own. We feel more deeply for him then, in fact, than we do later when he puts his grievances into words. Stallone creates the character and sells the situation with his presence itself. The screenplay should have stopped while it was ahead."

The Rambo Apple

"According to author David Morrell, the apple provided the name for the hero of his novel, First Blood, which gave rise to the Rambo film franchise. The novelist's wife brought home a supply of the fruit as he was trying to come up with a suitable name for the protagonist.^[6] It is uncertain whether David Morrell's wife brought home Rambos or Summer Rambos. Summer Rambos would have been much more common, but since his wife bought the apples at a roadside stand, either is possible.

James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet, sentimentalized the Rambo in his poem, The Rambo-Tree which appeared in his 1902 collection The Book of Joyous Children.^[7] The poem includes the repeating chorus:
For just two truant lads like we,When Autumn shakes the rambo-tree
There's enough for you and enough for me
It's a long, sweet way across the orchard.

A similar sentiment was expressed by "Uncle Silas" in his column for the September 1907 issue of The American Thresherman: "What has become of the good old apples we used to eat in the long ago down on the farm? The Rambo, the best apple that ever grew in an orchard, is fruit vouchsafed only in memory. [In Missouri,] no apple was ever enjoyed like the Rambo.... A boy would go farther to swipe Rambo apples, and subject his pantaloons to greater exposure from ugly dogs than he would for any other kind, and boys know on which tree the best apples grow. A drink of cider without any fixin', made of Rambo apples, will go farther down and awake the molecules of mankind in a greater degree than any other kind of cider. The world is growing wiser, but not in raising Rambo apples."

The claim that the Rambo was the favorite apple of Johnny Appleseed is false. Johnny Appleseed did not grow or sell any grafted varieties, and for the Rambo or any other variety to be perpetuated, it must be grafted. As Michael Pollan indicates in his chapter on the apple in Botany of Desire, John Chapman (1774–1845), for religious reasons related to the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg, believed grafting was an unnatural practice. Chapman was given the nickname "Appleseed" pejoratively for his highly unusual practice of planting trees from seed. The apples grown from seed are almost all small and poorly flavored, so with very rare exceptions, his trees would have been good for making hard cider only. Back when the frontier only extended as far west as the state of Indiana, that worked fine for Johnny Appleseed, since cider was a staple and the pioneers didn't have any other choice in suppliers. The apple tree in Nova, Ohio, that is more than 175 years old, can either be the last surviving apple tree that Johnny Appleseed planted or it can be a Rambo tree. It cannot be both, despite any marketing claims."

Intelligence

The smart guys don't know what to do with themselves. They are so smart, they play with the world like a piece of used gum.

I'm happy now that I've concluded I'm only average. I took a test for law school and the result was that I'm OK, but not great.

I then took a test for accounting and the result, statistically shows, again, that I'm OK. But they are nice guys and open the gates.

For me this is great because I tried to do the great Black Diamond ski run of philosophy and it was like a kid in Junior High getting knocked into the stands at an NBA game.

Let those fucked-up philosophers gnaw on each other.

What I learned about other cultures is that the lay-out of the earth is incredibly different. It is a beautiful planet to see and smell. I highly recommend Earth.

Past that, I won't say anything else. See all of Earth when you're alive, if you can. If not, then you get to know the part that the explorer never got to see better than anyone else.

Beer, wine, and cognac along the way.

Cheers.

Kastles

Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and philosopher whose published works mainly belong to the genre of science fiction. Dick explored philosophical, sociological, political, and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness. In his later works, Dick's thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his life experiences in addressing the nature of drug abuse, paranoia, schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS.^[1] Later in life, he wrote non-fiction on philosophy, theology, the nature of reality, and science. This material was published posthumously as The Exegesis.

The novel The Man in the High Castle bridged the genres of alternate history and science fiction, earning Dick a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963.^[2] Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, a novel about a celebrity who awakens one day to find that he is unknown, won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel in 1975.^[3] "I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards," Dick wrote of these stories. "In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real."^[4]

In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime.^[5] Although Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty,^[6] eleven popular films based on his works have been produced, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, The Adjustment Bureau and Impostor. In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923.^[7] In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series.^{[8][9][10][11]}

The Great Walk

From Africa.

China, however you want to categorize it, is the oldest civilization, civilization defined broadly as a project of organization and legibility.  Ignore Chinese history, and you are terribly ignorant.

For Western men, claims of ignorance come with feelings of inadequacy, fear, shame, or, if things are going well, excited belligerence. Yet I sit in my favorite spot, and no one is speaking English, they are speaking Chinese, and I am desperately downloading Pimsleur Mandarin.

The Chinese have been through all of this several times for several thousands of years. They were the first ones, from the walk from Africa, to settle down, formulate a standardized language, create government, and build a large fucking wall. Why did the Chinese build a wall?

I have sympathies for other cultures

“Anyone in such torment who has the gift of opening his heart, rather than contracting it, accepts the means of salvation in his heart. Someone who in this way penitently open his heart to God in confession lays it open for other men too. In doing so he loses the dignity that goes with his personal prestige and becomes like a child. That means without official position, dignity or disparity from others. A man can bare himself before others only out of a particular kind of love. A love which acknowledges, as it were, that we are all wicked children.  We could also say: Hate between men comes from cutting ourselves off from each other. Because we don’t want anyone else to look inside us, since it’s not a pretty sight in there. Of course you must continue to feel ashamed of what’s inside you, but not ashamed of yourself before your fellow-men. No greater torment can be experiences than One human being can experience. For if a man feels lost, that is the ultimate torment.” (Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 46e)

God help me as I struggle to figure out right from wrong. I am taking the CPA, as God wants, but I run into moral issues, as the article I just submitted on global warming. I still have my friends in other countries. I still have my friends in Alaska who are asking why I am not there right now. God of the Universe, please give me wisdom and peace. Please help my friends and my family. I am lost and I pretend to understand things that are beyond my control.

I like this Colombian woman who sings this serious and beautiful song. Maybe Moraline knows about this band?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6h_kHYHBaQ

The way my grandparents saw things

His parents moved from Germany to Indiana and he became a lawyer. Indiana was very rural at that time and in 1872, when Max Ehrmann was born, to be a German immigrant on a farm and going to the country's schools before there was much definition of anything very substantial. He didn't write Being and Time. My grandparents never heard of that book. I doubt Ehrmann did either.

Ehrmann wrote this in 1927 when he was 54:

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

“

”

Max Ehrmann, "Desiderata"

Letters of Marque

Why is it a good idea to be an investment banker, lawyer, or accountant? Because all of them have in some sense a "letter of marque." If you don't have a letter of marque, you are a pirate or a criminal or a privateer, which for the state is often hard to distinguish. There is the observation that the lower class has it bad, that they are treated poorly. What may be at play is that with the world population increasing tremendously with China and India stressing the competition for resources, the significance of having a letter of marque has grown tremendously. A man can try to be a privateer (or corsair or buccaneer), but it comes at great risk. First, he has no support if anything goes wrong. If anything goes wrong and he is without assets, he has no way of rebuilding the assets because he is bereft of a letter of marque. As a privateer, he will be sold to slavery.

Fight bravely, gentlemen, but remember the value of having a letter of marque. Are you good at negotiating with pirates? If so, the value of the letter of marque is not very high. Yet a letter of marque is not perfect armor. Zymen Danseker was on a sponsored mission:

"He resided in Marseilles for a year when French authorities asked him to lead an expedition against the corsairs. Despite rumors of his capture, he returned to France later that same year. In 1615 he was called up by Louis XIII to negotiate the release of French ships being held by Yusuf Dey in Tunis. According to the account of William Lithgow,^[6][7] Dansker was lead ashore in a ruse by Yusuf, captured by janissaires, and beheaded.^[8]"


And there are examples of men who still conduct missions without letters of mark and it leads to tomfoolery:


"Ward and his men sailed to the Mediterranean where he was able to acquire a warship of thirty-two guns which was renamed The Gift^[6] and began attacking merchantmen for the next two years. While at Salé, Morocco in 1605 several English and Dutch sailors, including Richard Bishop and Anthony Johnson, joined Ward's crew and the following year (August, 1606) Ward arranged with Cara Osman^[7] to use Tunis as a base of operations in exchange for which Osman would get first refusal of all goods.^[7] From this base, Jack Ward was easily able to capture several valuable merchant ships, including the 60 ton Reniera e Soderina.
Following his return to Tunis in June 1607, Ward was informed during the winter that the now rotted Reniera e Soderina had begun to sink. With several of his officers, Ward deserted the ship to one of the French prizes he had captured. The Reniera e Soderina later sank off Greece as 400 crew members, of which 250 were Muslim and 150 were English, were lost. Ironically, Ward lost his own ship, as well as two others captured by Venice, several weeks later.
While many in Tunisia were angered by Ward's desertion of the Muslim sailors aboard the Reniera e Soderina, Uthman Bey offered Ward a safe haven.^[3] Ward however asked James I of England for a royal pardon which was refused and he reluctantly returned to Tunis. Uthman Bey kept his word and Ward was granted protection by Tunis.
During the next year ballads and pamphleteers condemned John Ward for turning corsair. He accepted Islam along with his entire crew, changed his name to Yusuf Reis and married an Italian woman while he continued to send money to his English wife. In 1612 a play called A Christian Turn'd Turk was written about his conversion by the English dramatist Robert Daborne.
Ward continued raiding Mediterranean shipping, eventually commanding a whole fleet of corsairs, and whose flagship was a Venetian sixty-gunner. He profited by his piracy, retiring to Tunis to live a life of opulent comfort until 1622, when at the age of 70 he reportedly died from the plague."

Don Quixote

"Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."
"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza.
"Those you see over there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length."
"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone."

— Part 1, Chapter VIII. Of the valourous Don Quixote's success in the dreadful and never before imagined Adventure of the Windmills, with other events worthy of happy record.

Is my writing shit?

Trigger warning: I wrote this for all the wrong reasons. My good friend who is hammering out a tough job on trucks is a stand-up guy, a fellow of sympathy and encouragement. He's a guys I've known for a long time who had been a huge help when I was lost in SA. Who knows why I wrote this. But it expresses my frustration for the bridge loan of legibility that I currently grant myself. When I was 18 I would never self-censor myself. Moraline and I were publishing a magazine and we got a lot of heat for it. Men react in error and hyperbole, and they have to confess their sins. This is my transition to the big city. No edits.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Could be. I'll be the first to admit that based on my background and who I am, maybe I'm full of shit. That's fine. If it's true and can be proven, then I'll be a quiet accountant who runs half marathons for Gatorade and cookies and won't be a trouble to anyone.

However, I offer the following: claims of nonsense are claims of legibility. Claims of legibility are claims of the dominant power structure. It is the Schoolmaster, the man who controls the expression of the dominant class, claiming I have broke the rules of sensibility. I know how that game works. It's a power struggle, and if you have to go underground, you have a "hidden transcript," meaning you can't say what you think because you get waxed. So you have a sublimated transcript, and anthropologists arrive in numbers and with wonder about what's really going on. So if I'm chided for speaking "nonsense," well shit write the ticket but I AIN'T PAYING THE TICKET AND I AIN'T SERVING NO TIME. I'll go further, come for me, and I got my Glock and I got my Double Tap high grain hollow points and I will take down any motherfucker who fucks with me.

Already done my time is all I'm saying. I'm here in a new city and I will write what I feel each day. If I'm full of shit, great. A great scholar once wrote that a man "gets exactly what he wants." I was broke and homeless in Alaska and had to turn tail and make money in a big city because it was to my advantage. Show me a skipper who isn't in the fishing for the money. Show me a skipper who doesn't make a spreadsheet and pay his guys fairly (some skippers rip off the crew). I fished on a boat that had an IFQ holder who is currently going to law school and a guy who was *the best deck hand* who is now a practicing CPA. I met a guy, who I've already written about, who said*he wished he had an office job in Seattle.* Tell me that Kevin, a guy who put me up for a week, thinks that I'm an idiot for trying to make money and get by. Kevin just misses my company. My skipper just misses my company. Neither of these two blame me for making money. They are impressed with my ability to do this city shit. They know I hose down decks and take hooks in my hand and work my ass off. Ask the Filipinos who was the guy who pitched the most fish in in 2014. Who was it? Who was the last guy who unloaded the last haul of Pcod in 2014 when he caught the fish? The plant manager and Danny G. could not believe we were fishing so hard and so late. If I'm full of nonsense, if I'm full of shit, show me the guy whose full of the sensibility and sense that you're aiming for. Is is a fucking whale who never stepped on shore?

So I published a phenomenology of my new big city, and it's no different than the struggle for a man to survive. The real or fake contrast wasn't nonsense, it was meant to highlight the fact that a man struggles for his existence and courage, he struggles for the expression of his courage. I don't bust another man's hustle. Each man gets by how he can. In Alaska there is a deep respect for just getting by, because once it gets cold there it's a fucking hard place to live. Each morning I scraped the ice from my truck's windows. I went to the gas station and I got coffee. I went to a library to warm up and right myself. I had no land at the time, no base. Alaska is a tough place with no money. I don't blame anyone for coming to Alaska with money. You need it; vultures will eat you if you come unprepared.

Where I live they are unapologetic about the conflict of the natives verses the new arrivals. I run on a trail where there is a memorial for a man, wife, and daughter who were murdered in 1841 by the Indians. Texans don't have the guilt because they won a war, a few wars. They play music and they dance here and any fisherman would say I'm smart to be here, that I didn't bail but I went to a good place.

Maybe I had the wrong experience in Alaska. The Filipinos weren't my friends nor were the Mexicans. The In-Charge guys liked me for my management skills. That whole operation needed to be righted by a guy like me. I got my job on the boat from the guy in charge who no one liked. Charlie said I should get the fuck out of the business. But I was just in Alaska last week. It was dark and cold and hard again, just like I remembered. Everyone was finishing up. I come back to Texas and write my article, and I'm full of shit and nonsense? Man, I have half my fucking life in Alaska. I'm full of shit and nonsense? Tell me whose the real guy. Fucking show me that guy.

I was hired by a Finn to fish. He trusted no one but trusted me like a son. He understands what I'm doing here. He predicted it. He knows I fit in in this rat race, despite my urges to break away and live in the woods.

So I will tell it like it is as I live in this big city and manage the system of legibility that I created. I have a fraction of blood in the people I wiped out when I arrived in North America, and it haunts me. My grandfather was a dark-skinned hook-nosed high school principal, 50% Cherokee. My own father, a lawyer, is a hook-nosed half breed who wanted to be a forest ranger but who was encouraged to be be big time corporate guy. When my Scottish clan came over here, we had been doing the legibility shit for about 6 centuries. We were never big deals in Scotland, but were major land lords. The King who translated the Bible into English considered one of my ancestors like a father and trusted adviser, because he gave him measured advice on legibility, its limits and its advantages. That clan moved its way to Southern Illinois, where they were Governors and land owners and men who spread the King's matrix. They arrived to the safe shores of Lake Michigan, where they had peaceful and productive lives.

But to stay out of jail and to maintain autonomy, you have to manage the matrix of legibility, and it changes every fucking day. Hesiod said #1 is maintaining autonomy. How did I get my job on the boat? The plant manager, the one everyone hated, called up the skipper and said I was good to go. The working class doesn't like guys like me. I'll figure my shit out, but as I do it, it ain't nonsense. It ain't no problem of language or the problem of the other or the problem of hermeneutics. It's the question of competition and survival against stupid ass one-eyed Filipinos who fucked with my perfection of fish flow. The superstar forklift drivers don't get this. The forklift drivers don't know how cold it gets in winter without heat. The superstar forklift drivers don't know the isolation of cold Alaska in winter without company housing. Everyone likes the superstar forklift drivers. I'm a shit forklift driver.

Finally, I didn't write my phenomenology to bust anyone's hustle. A pissing match is a waste of time. I still have a cabin to build in Alaska. I still have a shit load of islands I will sea kayak in both Alaska and Chile. I want to explore new lands and want my neighbors to do well and prosper. But if I write shit, it's not nonsense. It's my fucking my fucking day and my fucking life. I have been to the desert and I have seen the fucking swells and my body has ached and THEN I had to pitch all the fish, ice them, then re-bait, and then set, all over again MANUALLY, no fucking autobaiter. I made $2,900 fishing in Alaska, about $10,000 on the front dock. I nearly destroyed my hands. Snap on fishing with a rock fish injury--It wasn't Chris's fault, but it fucked up my right hand--is hell. Fucking hell. No philosophy to express this. I still have that spine in my hand and I still remember how I felt at 12 a.m. with a cigarette in my mouth and wanting to sleep. If I'm full of nonsense YOU'RE FULL OF SHIT.

Scholarship in Eugene

I used to go to work in this town and read all the books and write down the thoughts. I went to the Chinese eat spots because it seemed they had their shit together. No matter what paradox I was trying to solve, a bowl of noodles with the chili oil made me straight. February, 2015, Eugene.

438. “It is very difficult to evaluate Watkin’s suggestion. If he is right that Hesiod has without reflection inherited a very old Indo-European tradition, it nevertheless seems clear that Hesiod almost certainly does not know that he means penis; if Hesiod does not know that he means penis, it is hard to imagine what his audience thought this riddle may have been about.” (Notes to English translation of Hesiod’s Works and Days, David W. Tandy and Walter C. Neale. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, p. 108.)

The Reality Guys

The Reality Guys say they are doing real stuff, and most everyone else (maybe you included), aren't doing real stuff. Real stuff is good, unreal stuff is bad.

The problem with this from a pragmatic viewpoint is that the observation is highly contextual. What's real? What's fake? What was fake then might be real now. What's at the verge of being real might be fake the next moment.

Hesiod's dad really didn't like the ocean and Hesiod shared this opinion. He went for the farm life and thought that if he could manage a farm and get along with his neighbors, well then you're 99% there.  The sea is not easy and the guys who like it, like it a lot, but they know it's tough.

Yet maybe Hesiod was a fake. After all, he waxed and waned about a lost past, said he wished he could have been with another team. That doesn't make him a bad guy. He's just getting something off his chest, and by doing so he extends a range of emotions which maybe make people happy, maybe help people cope. He helped me cope, and that's interesting because he's 2815 years older than me, far past my current Master's division.

This is why I don't have any issue with the pessimists. They are basically describing to people some thing that gets them down and they are facing it and telling about it. That helps other people and the story is interesting.

I read a book about a guy who did a hard job in Alaska, a very hard job. I was so intrigued about the story that I went to Alaska and did this hard job. It was a very hard job.

Lots of stuff was hard. You had little. I finally was given a cheap mountain bike by the HR lady at this hard job. There was no bike store so for chain grease: I either went to the oil disposal place or I took a little bit of excess off the red chain grease from a fork lift. A couple times a neighbor of mine stole my mountain bike to go fishing because he didn't think I was using it.

I still wonder about what is real and fake. I'm taking this CPA exam and I'm going to be a big boy. I try telling my friends sometimes about fishing or bike riding but it doesn't register. I'm fast again and  women tell me they like my body. I don't know if that's real or fake. Sometimes I worry about dying, sometimes I don't give a shit. Whether that's real or fake I can't tell.

My brain is a mix of languages and experiences. I've lived 11% of my life outside 'my country.' Maybe that 11% was real, maybe fake.

I'm a sucker for human beings. I like to hear them tell their stories. I like to ask them questions. I like to learn things from other people. I like to watch Henry Rollins on Youtube. I like the blonde British woman who runs 5 minute miles with me. She is so pretty and sexy.

I'm both old and young and desperate. I want to tell my story. I don't want to be sad, isolated, and blocked by prisons I've set up but whose wardens have long abandoned.

I'm lucky I discovered the bicycle. Here where I live there's big traffic but also a big amount of people who ride their bikes to and from where they are going and the bike riders aren't existentially constipated like the people who drive the cars.

At the stoplight today I counted the people who drove by and said things. 'That's a guy, that's a gal, man, she's pissed, man, he's holding on.' I don't do commentary on the bike riders, but maybe I should. 'Man, she's so free she could ride up that hill for no good reason. Man, that guy rides so fast, he could ride to Leander and no one would blame him.'

Old School Aphorisms

Why I wrote what I wrote in Brasil was unclear to me a the time, still not clear to me now. I have 150,000 words that I will be releasing, and my take on it is this: let it be entertaining. It's either boring or interesting. If it's boring, skim through it. Chances are a few of the aphorisms are interesting. What I find interesting is the progression. How one idea interacts with another. This is aphorism 8 of 815. Mid-2013, Sao Paulo.


8. On Mafias: The mafia has as its entrance fee into the castle—cash, money, currency. What happens when no one wants to play anymore?

Some do, indeed, enjoy the matrix the way many enjoy sports. Traders most likely enjoy the game when there is an edge—large sums of client or firm money generally provide them an edge—normally an access to something others do not have. There is little risk they lose their own capital. And so it is the pure market participants of fiat currency can enjoy the game. The game can be intellectually challenging. With an edge, a man is not destroyed when ‘unseen’ forces destroy his capital. The concept of ‘risk’ and ‘risk management’—what is now risked is not health or life—yet rather legal title to assets. Trading is a game, and one nation could win the game of asset ownership. Derivatives make the game more powerful—and they also magnify the competitive forces of the market. 'Advance information is incredibly valuable with derivatives. Legibility most often means identification for the purpose of taxation or coercive control. Yet legibility can also be used as a means to increase the probability of financial forecasting for the purpose of profit. A shift in wealth represents a shift in power—states must maintain absolute control over information in financial markets. Yet states do not have absolute control over this information—especially when the concept of 'valuable information' changes daily. Those who control access to valuable information are the same ones who define this valuable information. The individuals who make a prediction as to what information will be of value, and then create a technique to identify this information, are the ones who will ‘control’ this information. Of course, they do not ‘create’ this information in the sense that they ‘produce’ this information. Rather, valuable information can often be a squint. And this is not to say that underlying data isn’t the product of individuals. Individuals and their states, along with what one can generally call ‘acts of God,’ are the prime movers of information. Those who identify the appropriate squint are merely those who can predict the pitch, then hit it.

[Take home assignment: Why is this guy writing this shit in English in Brasil?]

Mahasiddhas, mouthwash drinkers, and the internal cum shot

 I.  

At the Wall Mart, a filthy, alcohol-ravaged native stumbled at the self checkout line. He couldn't figure out the machine, but an attendant, also a native, took the extra large bottle of mint mouthwash from him and told him to leave. I looked at what as in my arms--some instant coffee, some blueberries, Power Aid, bottled water. "If I wanted alcohol, I'd go buy some beer. I would not buy alcoholic mouthwash," I said to myself.

Treat everyone in such a way that they do not stand in a hollowed-out forest fire of a soul, a a dry socket of hope. Raise children in such a way they do not stand in line waiting to drink mouthwash in the back of the parking lot. 

Perhaps I was too curt with the native from the Aleutians. He had interrupted a conversation on colonization or taxation to ask if anyone wanted to buy a 30-day bus ticket. He had asked another man if he had any work for him, that he was looking for a job. I gave him the name of a boat that fished the Bering Sea in Winter. "You can make four thousand dollars, but the Bering Sea is tough." "I know," he said, "I spend 35 years of my life living on the Bering Sea."

I went on a long run along the river. Hipsters on steel bikes road past. I headed back in to town and the native from the Bering Sea passed me on the sidewalk and we missed a fist bump because I was running fast. The last thing he told me was that he would fly to Dutch Harbor. I hoped he wouldn't try some stunt with mouthwash, I hoped he would go to an employment agency and use his special status as a native and they would help him out. He was a good guy. He could drive a cab. Tourists would like him. 

"Which one of the Mahasiddhas?", I considered, "is the mouthwash-drinker?" I had read the Wikipedia passage that day. Was he a "Rejected Wastrel," "Lucky Beggar," or the "Celibate Bell-Ringer?" I didn't know. I don't have room to hear people's stories anymore, and I had already spent the morning learning about the importance of a dry suit (it saves a man's life in the back country) and Cleveland's real estate bubble in 2005. I had no time for a potential "Goitre-Necked Yogin" or "Courtesan's Alchemist." I myself was just walking through the motions of the cycle of suffering as explained to me by Marcelo in his camper in Patagonia when it was damn cold and my feet were giving me trouble. All I wanted was a pair of thermal pack boots. Energy is released and a man becomes wild, crazy, and happy, like an escaped dog. Then he grows hungry, thirty, and sad. Perhaps he dives into the forest with relish and excitement, only to be chased out by a bull. No one expected a bull to be lurking in a Patagonian forest. But there it is, chasing after you because two stupid dogs had never seen a bull. But bulls are the real thing, and it is terrorizing to be chased by a bull. You lose your cynicism at that moment if the rain and ripio had not done it earlier. You can't complain that it's not fair for a bull to chase on wet gravel, on an incline. But your sprinting ability on heavily loaded bike somehow outran the bull, and the dogs weren't mauled. Is that were my luck was spent?

I wonder how Carlos is doing with his Brazilian woman. I wonder what's going to happen to Brasil now. The currency has fallen apart, almost 100% depreciation from the day I arrived until today. Brasil's economy grew 400% in 15 years. I arrived thinking Brasil would be like it was in 2000. But parts of Sao Paulo were more like Portland than Buga. Outside of the city it was different. But the girl I met scoffed at the small towns. "If you won't live in a small town, I'm not visiting you ever again," I should have said. But I missed her after my ride across the Estrada Real. Those two nights together in Rio in the summer were maybe among the best two nights I've ever had. I had settled into a hostel and everyone liked me there. I was the strange guy that only spoke Portuguese. The Israelis thought that strange. The Irishman and the Dutchman ran the place and found it obvious that I had arrived in the hostel to be their business adviser and psychotherapist. I learned everything about their lives, their business struggles and proposals, as well as their romantic problems. I just wanted to be left alone and practice Portuguese but one of these two were always in the kitchen or living room offering to me one final confession. "It was great talking to me," a guy like me, but I said nothing and hid my impatience.

There was another business partner, a stunning blond Brazilian, who was the girlfriend of the final business partner, a Brazilian surfer from Niteroi. "Our good friend Richard cycled around South America with $200 for two years. He has written a book about it. I invited him over tonight to meet you."

A. had arrived that day. She and her friend were dancing on the kitchen table. Spirited, I thought, but both were drunk. Richard and I sat in the lounge and swapped cycling stories. The girls said they would go out to the balada and dance. We talked about the journey. The girls arrived hours later, went to their room and brought a bottle of vodka. We began drinking heavily. A. went to the court yard to smoke. I followed her. I took a puff and told her to breathe in my smoke. Moments later my hand was up her dress. We returned to the lounge and the banter continued and Richard slept on the couch and the girls and I returned to the bunk. I climbed in the bunk but with all the snoring bodies around us she wasn't in the mood and suggested I come to her large bed in Sao Paulo. That was an unfair deferral of pleasure, I felt at that moment. There were two 3X3 bunks and one single bed and all were full. The room was tiny, two men snored, and it would be bad to add to the must.

The next night we went out with two German guys and danced. The girls wanted to stand hours in line to get into the best clubs, but when they learned I didn't have my passport and I would not be admitted, we sulked to a small club with a low cover and danced for hours.

R. was drunk and went home with one of the Germans. A. and I caught a cab back to the hostel and went to the leather couch in the lounge. Laura slept on the couch across from us but wasn't bothered. I was inside her immediately and the leather love seat was slippery. I cummed on her stomach and grabbed a few paper towels and handed them to her. We walked up to the bunks and slept separately.

The next night the girls went out again but I stayed in and read. They didn't return til three and when A. got on her bunk I asked her if she wanted company. I had asked this question in Colombia with a German and it's a polite question. I climbed up and she pulled aside her shorts and when it was time to pull out, she gripped me tightly and I could not break away. I gushed inside her and I felt happy and peaceful. The Argentinian might have been masturbating as he watched us, but it was dark an I'm not certain. I climbed down my bunk and arose early the next morning for a run along the beach. I had breakfast with R. and A. was still in bed, unwilling to get out of bed and check out before she would be charged for another day.

She put on a dress and led me through he streets and to an outdoor samba festival. In all the days I knew her she never looked prettier or happier. Before we left she asked me, "A fora ou dentro?" Inside, yes, inside, don't you remember? "I'll have to take one of those pills, then," she said.

But that night I watched the two dance together and the crowd sing together only as Brazilians do. We drank cold beer and ate grilled chicken on skewers. Then she led me through the streets of Rio once again, back to the hostel where she tore out a poem from a book and wrote me a message. Something about dreams. She shed a tear as I kissed her in front of the taxi. And then she was off to São Paulo, and I returned to listen to the confessions of the Irishman and the Dutchman and the occasional complaints of the acid-tripping Panamanian who could not, for the life of him, speak one word of Brazilian Portuguese.

"List of the Mahasiddhas

In Buddhism there are eighty-four Mahasiddhas (an asterisk denotes a female Mahasiddha):

1. Acinta, the "Avaricious Hermit";
2. Ajogi, the "Rejected Wastrel";
3. Anangapa, the "Handsome Fool";
4. Aryadeva (Karnaripa), the "One-Eyed";
5. Babhaha, the "Free Lover";
6. Bhadrapa, the "Exclusive Brahmin";
7. Bhandepa, the "Envious God";
8. Bhiksanapa, "Siddha Two-Teeth";
9. Bhusuku (Shantideva), the "Idle Monk";
10. Camaripa, the "Divine Cobbler";
11. Champaka, the "Flower King";
12. Carbaripa (Carpati) "the Petrifyer";
13. Catrapa, the "Lucky Beggar";
14. Caurangipa, "the Dismembered Stepson";
15. Celukapa, the "Revitalized Drone";
16. Darikapa, the "Slave-King of the Temple Whore";
17. Dengipa, the "Courtesan's Brahmin Slave";
18. Dhahulipa, the "Blistered Rope-Maker";
19. Dharmapa, the "Eternal Student" (c.900 CE);
20. Dhilipa, the "Epicurean Merchant";
21. Dhobipa, the "Wise Washerman";
22. Dhokaripa, the "Bowl-Bearer";
23. Dombipa Heruka, the "Tiger Rider";
24. Dukhandi, the "Scavenger";
25. Ghantapa, the "Celibate Bell-Ringer";
26. Gharbari or Gharbaripa, the "Contrite Scholar" (Skt., pandita);
27. Godhuripa, the "Bird Catcher";
28. Goraksha, the "Immortal Cowherd";
29. Indrabhuti, the "Enlightened Siddha-King";
30. Jalandhara, the "Dakini's Chosen One";
31. Jayananda, the "Crow Master";
32. Jogipa, the "Siddha-Pilgrim";
33. Kalapa, the "Handsome Madman";
34. Kamparipa, the "Blacksmith";
35. Kambala (Lavapa), the "Black-Blanket-Clad Yogin");
36. Kanakhala*, the younger Severed-Headed Sister;
37. Kanhapa (Krishnacharya), the "Dark Siddha";
38. Kankana, the "Siddha-King";
39. Kankaripa, the "Lovelorn Widower";
40. Kantalipa, the "Ragman-Tailor";
41. Kapalapa, the "Skull Bearer";
42. Khadgapa, the "Fearless Thief";
43. Kilakilapa, the "Exiled Loud-Mouth";
44. Kirapalapa (Kilapa), the "Repentant Conqueror";
45. Kokilipa, the "Complacent Aesthete";
46. Kotalipa (or Tog tse pa, the "Peasant Guru";
47. Kucipa, the "Goitre-Necked Yogin";
48. Kukkuripa, (late 9th/10th Century), the "Dog Lover";
49. Kumbharipa, "the Potter";
50. Laksminkara*, "The Mad Princess";
51. Lilapa, the "Royal Hedonist";
52. Lucikapa, the "Escapist";
53. Luipa, the "Fish-Gut Eater";
54. Mahipa, the "Greatest";
55. Manibhadra*, the "Happy Housewife";
56. Medhini, the "Tired Farmer";
57. Mekhala*, the Elder Severed-Headed Sister;
58. Mekopa, the "Guru Dread-Stare";
59. Minapa, the "Fisherman";
60. Nagabodhi, the "Red-Horned Thief'";
61. Nagarjuna, "Philosopher and Alchemist";
62. Nalinapa, the "Self-Reliant Prince";
63. Nirgunapa, the "Enlightened Moron";
64. Naropa, the "Dauntless";
65. Pacaripa, the "Pastrycook";
66. Pankajapa, the "Lotus-Born Brahmin";
67. Putalipa, the "Mendicant Icon-Bearer";
68. Rahula, the "Rejuvenated Dotard";
69. Saraha, the "Great Brahmin";
70. Sakara or Saroruha;
71. Samudra, the "Pearl Diver";
72. Śāntipa (or Ratnākaraśānti), the "Complacent Missionary";
73. Sarvabhaksa, the "Glutton");
74. Savaripa, the "Hunter", held to have incarnated in Drukpa Künleg;
75. Syalipa, the "Jackal Yogin";
76. Tantepa, the "Gambler";
77. Tantipa, the "Senile Weaver";
78. Thaganapa, the "Compulsive Liar";
79. Tilopa, the "Great Renunciate"
80. Udhilipa, the "Bird-Man";
81. Upanaha, the "Bootmaker";
82. Vinapa, the "Musician";
83. Virupa, the "Dakini Master";
84. Vyalipa, the "Courtesan's Alchemist"."