Kerouaaaayyyyyy

It is Christmas day 2009 and I am in Tahoe City after my Bend-er and Bachelor shred mission successes. Luke and the two lovely kiwi girls Rachel and Lucy are preparing our jerry rigged Christmas dinner in the tiny kitchen of the tiny studio apartment. The scene is smokey from the chicken juices overflowing out of a too-shallow pan and onto the bottom of a hot oven. Each time the oven is opened a smoke signal goes up only a few feet before it hits the ceiling and spreads its mass throughout the small entirety of the apartment. Good thing there is no smoke detector.

I wander over to the maroon textbook of Kerouac Road Novels that Kaleb left with me until our next rendezvous, which will be in NYC in the springtime. I start at the beginning with On the Road, and there, in the first few pages comes another Kerouac revelation. Words spoken in my mind quite often recently, written by Jack in 1957—the same thoughts spread over a few decades.

I had Kerouac in my head for the last few months, wanting to read him, and here I am in possession of six of his works in one old hardcover text. The universe once again, being the ceaseless provider. This is that thought of mine that he wrote over half century ago. I am sure there will be more to come.

But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulouas yellow roman candles exploding like candles across the stars, and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes, “Awww!”

Before sleep I read this beautiful line:

Somewhere along the line I knew there’d be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.

Rideshare Post

The Van is cruisin' to Tahoe on Wednesday or Thursday (Bend to Tahoe City)

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Date: 2009-12-21, 6:24PM PST
Reply to: comm-t8tp4-1520574407@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

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Hello fellow travelers, I will be leaving the beautiful town of Bend on either Wednesday or Thursday and arriving in the North Lake Tahoe area shortly thereafter. I have a big van so I can fit you and all your friends/snowboards (skiers get strapped to the roof) for a comfy ride. Gas money is the best form of compensation but I am open to bartering for the ride as well. Price can be discussed since the van guzzles gas and I just wouldn't find it fair to make you split it even with me unless you were hauling some gear...Roundabout 40-50 bucks would do the trick I reckon...

Other forms of accepted currency are healthy food and green herbs, a place to live and/or work in North Lake area, alot of beer of any quality, a cool bicycle, a pair of snowboard goggles, or just gimme some good karma and a smile.

I'm 26 but act like an intelligent 12 year old with too much saltwater in his skull.
Best way to contact me is at 516-459-1644.
See you soon.

• Location: Bend to Tahoe City
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Kerouac Paragraph

Opened up a copy of Desolation Angels that is lying around the dungeon den today and right towards the beginning there were some smooth sentences that make a whole lotta sense. JK spends 70 days alone working as a mountain lookout in northwest Washington on Desolation Peak. Towards the end of his solitude he writes:

Hold together, Jack, pass through everything, and everything is one dream, one appearance, one flash, one sad eye, one crystal lucid mystery, one word -Hold still, man, regain your love of life and go down from this mountain and simply be---be---be the infinite fertilities of the one mind of infinity, make no comments complaints, criticisms, appraisals, avowals, sayings, shooting stars of thought, just flow, flow, be you all, be what it is, it is only what it always is---Hope is a word like a snow-drift--- This is the Great Knowing, this is the Awakening, this is Voidness--- So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless and don't be sorry--- Prunes, prune, eat your prunes--- And you have been forever, and will be forever, and all the worrisome smashings of your foot on innocent cupboard doors, it was only the Void pretending to be a man pretending not to know the Void--

He experienced that revelation in 1957. I am living that slowwwwwwww awakening in 2009. I guess I need to find the top of a mountain and hang out for a bit.

December Surf Mishun

    So seven days have just been enjoyed (once again) in an amazingly random place on the Oregon coast (the real OC).  I arrived last Friday evening.  Tonight, this Friday evening, is the first time clouds appeared in the sky.  Two of the days were filled with massive, unpaddleable swell and I got to see some towsurf action go down.  Dudes were ripping high speed turns on this little mountain shaped steamroller of a right.  The other 5 days during my stay each gave me  at least one wave, which is all you need.  

     Well, all you need is Love, according to the Beatles.    And according to many other people and me, Love is everything flowing around and through us.  Therefore, since a wave made of water has a flow more powerful than our feeble carcasses could think....waves are Love.  

      It was a frigid low fahrenheit thirties everyday with a crisp offshore wind blowin' like tapioca froth out over the fifty fahrenheit degree ocean.  Add that low lying northern northern hemisphere winter sun and I' am just a stoked bloke runny egg yolk.  

     Today was the sealer of the deal with a light southerly rip, tide sucking out, and peaks coming through wherever I awaited.  I fluffed a whole lot of good waves which always happens but is supposed too.  It gives us a chance to laugh at ourselves...after all we are all pretty goofy lookingacting creatures when you think about it.  The waves that were granted to me were just so clean and with such an elegant shape...the work of a master craftswoman for suuuuure.      

    There was a cool portobello mushroom lookin' jellyfish in the water that I had never seen before.  I just thought of making jellyfish lamps...I'm sure someone has already thought of that but right now was the first time I  ever thought of it.  

   There were a few waves during this mission that I paddled over passing right next to the pure zone, seconds from being eaten and as I punched through the back in ninja-duck position, the curl of each wave would play in silence, burned into my brain like when you stare directly at a bright light.  

    Bright light? Waves? Love?  The complex, chaotic silliness that is being. 

    So the moral of this half baked tale is that it does not matter what you are doing, just as long as you remember to play like a child (but thankfully for me, I'm now equipped with slightly bigger muscles) and get silly.  Dancing is good all the time, especially in small groups, it allows the energy continue to move freely throught space and time.  Fascinating stuff...

     If you have  two hundred dollars lying around you can go purchase Carl Jung's Red Book and mindsurf it for the rest of your existence probably.  I was fortunate enough  to be placed in the universe in a space where a fresh copy of it was opened for the first time, at that same time also.  Just two mother aged women giddy as when they were schoolgirls, and me, the funny hat wearing tan kid with a childish grin on his face who was amazed at the power of going with the flow.  The coolest things happen at just the right moments.  Take a half hour walk on the beach, find an old washed up little kid's bicycle and carry it up to this pointy rock outcrop and place it on top like a flag, on the way back, pop into a cool looking used bookshop, grab a book about the native plants of Kauai out of the free book box, and then watch this woman bring this massive red book up to the counter for purchase.  "What's that you say? Carl Jung?" 

 Seriously...It is easier to be happy than we thought, and you need barely anything, just a smile and a belly full of healthy food.

craigslist rideshare ads

 These are the ads I just posted for the next leg of the mission...I got kinda baked first so I was making all kinds of funny faces at what I was writing. Enjoy.

OFFERED Ride: Lincoln City to Eugene to Bend Saturday around noonish (Lincoln City)

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Date: 2009-12-10, 10:51PM PST
Reply to: comm-axtzt-1504901352@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

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I will be leaving L City at hopefully noon but we all know how planning goes. I'm 26 and my van is 20 and rides like a boat on a glassy day. There's plenty of room for stuff and people of all shapes and sizes. I'll be stopping in to Eugene to pull the eagle swoop on my buddy K-Leb and then we are cruisin' through to Bend hoping to get there in the evening-ish. Ideally, you have gas money to contribute, but if you are poor like me and would rather barter for the ride, I'm all ears. Best way to find me is by calling 516 459 1644 and waiting until I pick up. I can drop you anywhere reasonably close to central Eugene then Bend. See you soon. : ) 

Location: Lincoln City

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Offered to Bend Saturday afternoon (Eugene)

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Date: 2009-12-10, 11:02PM PST
Reply to: comm-u3svh-1504906085@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

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Cruisin through in the stealth van with Bend in the evening being the destination. With all the good vibes in the van it is easy to cram as many people and things in there as possible so please, bring the family. Gas money is most appreciated, unless you have a huge sail and it is incredibly windy out of the west. Call 516-459-1644. C you. 

• Location: Eugene
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Random rhymes from the dusty rhyme book

hell bent

rhythmic rhetoric

subjects and predicates 

not for the faint of heart

or the illiterate

Your liver will be signed, sealed, and delivered to shivers and you can't get it back like an indian giver.

For Huxtable effects you need a cause, B.

     Yeah? but how much is that gonna cost me?

Well, you can paint my picket fence white 

dressed in Robin Hood's men's tights for ten nights.

I dunno man, I just say what my pen writes, dendrites.

On your own ain't all alone but within.

Perfection is procured when puzzle pieces are fit in

the right spaces in the right places at the right time.

There is no wrong way to have a right mind.

May it all come true not false.

Check your head before you check your pulse.

scream

      get it out

                    vent

smash shit

     get bent

rage,

rampage,

repent.

head spinning

like the go-round

that's merry

travelling

at light speed

thats fast

             very

Turn off the TV and read...then Twitter that you are reading

Cool things written by others that I am writing here, because they are cool (the people and the things they said) and sometimes the brain needs poking and provoking if its always choking (on “filler” thoughts):

Australian Aboriginal teachings :

We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love. . . .and then we return home.

“Free giving” and generosity are fostered in children at a young age. The act of sharing is an instinctive reflex in aboriginal people.

The vagina is very hot, it is fire and each time the penis goes in it, it dies.

The exaggeration of self-importance, which we call fame, distorts the flow of interrelationships and shatters the sense of belonging that forms the web of society.

Aging occurs as a result of a loss of connection with the spirit of earthly life.

Rainbows: From this direct union of fire and water, the refracted light unveils a perfect circular arch in which the entire potential of the world of form and color delicately manifests.

Steinbeck from “Of Mice and Men” : As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.

Douglas Adams from “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” (which found me, not I it) : The effect of drinking a pan-galactic gargle blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.

There comes a point I’m afraid where you begin to suspect that if there’s any real truth, its that the entire multi-dimensional infinity of the universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs.

Dostoyevsky from “Brothers Karamazov Part 1”, written a helluva long time ago : Everywhere today the mind of man has ceased, ironically, to understand that the true security of the individual does not lie in isolated personal efforts but in general human solidarity.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada from “Beyond Birth and Death” :

We are eternal so why should we be interested in temporary things?

Travel is part of the nature of the living entity.

Reality means existence which cannot be vanquished; reality means eternity.

Tom Sharpe from “The Throwback” : All in all, Sandicott Crescent was the height of suburbia, the apex of that architectural triangle which marked the highest point of the topographical chart of middle class ambition.

Thomas Paine from “The Age of Reason” written in the late 1700s

My own mind is my own church.

The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purpose of power and revenue.

The word of God cannot exist in any written or human language.

The church has setup a religion of pomp and of revenue, in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.

Since, then, no part of our earth is left unoccupied, why is it to be supposed that the immensity of space is a naked void lying in eternal waste? There is room for millions of worlds as large or larger than ours.

The only idea we can have of serving God, is that of contributing to the happiness of the living creation that God has made.

It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of the creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial miseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick among mankind, TO EXPEL ALL IDEAS OF REVEALED RELIGION, AS A DANGEROUS HERESY AND AN IMPIOUS FRAUD.

Thomas Paine from Thomas Paine (badass motherfucker):

Poverty is a thing created by that which is called civilized life.

My country is the world and my religion is to do good.

Follow the signs. . .

It is kind of a trip to explain, but if we know that the path of life has been pre-mapped and every decision has already been made, then cruising along the path becomes a bit queer at times when decisions are made for you by subtle signs external to your own being...then when you realize that nothing is external nor internal, just all part of the same whole celestial body - thats when the trip really gets weeeeeiiiiiiiird maaaaaaaaaaan.

Por ejemplo: Last night I went out to a bar a few towns away from home to hang out with Cecilia and Tracy and give them a sober ride home. Driving drunk is one thing; getting caught driving drunk in your parents car is the worst can of worms you could ever try to open, so I ain't even messin'. This bar, "The Chalet", is in kind of a random ritzy neighborhood and attracts a lower middle aged crowd of mostly greasy men on the prowl for what would seem like other greasy men, since there are no or few other women there besides the lower middle aged alcoholic batty bartender, a few random girlfriends, and Cecilia and Tracy since Tracy's parents live right nearby. I could sense the disappoint upon my arrival by the greasers who were being given attention by my friends when that attention was diverted to me, the tan, skinny good looking kid without a beer gut or overpriced cologne. After all, I hadn't seen them nor they me for months so attention was diverted for good reason. Dealing with drunks when you have a crisp sober brain can be a task similar to teaching palsies ballet but I knew the situation I was getting myself into and had therefore accepted it.

A testosterone filled shouting match riled up between tanning bed frequenter Randall (Russle?) and a shorter cat along the lines of George Castanza (with similar hairline). Something to do with the bathroom door being blocked or locked. I couldn't quite decipher it as I was trying to dodge saliva splatter that was flying everywhere. It was all, "Fuckin'" this and , "Fuckin'" that and, "You think you're a wise guy," complete with thick Long Island accents and wild babboon arm flailing. The situation was diffused by the owner who was calm and collected and merely explained, "Life's too short." I agreed silently.

By this time I was sitting at the bar near the altercation nursing a Blue Moon and the delicious orange chunk floating in the froth. Randall Russle ended up next to me while Castanza went outside to let his face return to a normal color. I assured RR in clear, concise English, that the whole situation was silly, giving him a warm smile to back it up. I could tell that the sensitive side of him accepted my smile, however, his ego was visibly bruised (even though there was no winner nor loser) and in his head he was silently and very violently stomping his size 9.5s into the crushed balding skull of Castanza. You'd think after 40 or so years of life that all people would understand peace and kindness and the unnecessity of senseless arguing with your own brothers and sisters - this is Long Island with alcohol in the mix and a huge lack of female prescence; an equation with a grim outcome.

Bummed by RR I silently hoped for relief from the tense energy in the air when along comes this sweaty big eyed brick wall of a man saying something about "slow death, immense decay, showers that cleanse you of your life" while pumping a fist. Now to the innocent bystander, this would strike fear in the heart and be a cause for an instant exit. Lucky for me I have always loved Slayer since the first time I heard "Angel of Death" in one of the Whiskey snowboard videos, so I promptly chimed in, "forced in, like cattle you run, stripped of your life's worth, human mice, for the angel of death, four hundred thousand more to die!!" Instantly, a bro-down arm embrace back slap and I introduced myself to Kevin. He was somewhere in his thirties, with intense, dark eyes, pretty squared off facial features with a Blond-ish crew cut, and sweating ferocity. The New York accent was there but his energy was calm and confident, a quite different creature than I was accustomed to meeting in this corner of the globe. We talked music, him more than me, as he was older and grew up in an evolving NY Hardcor/punk/metal scene, and I was a mere by-product of that era. Misfits (two days prior I found this old sterling silver Misfits pendant and decided to wear it around my neck on a leather rope; coincidence? Nope.), Maiden, Bad Religion, Madball, NOFX the list goes on. I was intrigued by his honesty, which I felt and did not question. Also his knowledge and insight of lyrics was precisely on point, like he was a college professor and the class was Advanced Metal Lyric Deciphering 400. He told me that he never had parents and the reson he is the person he is today is because of Black Sabbath. Then he starts talking about John Denver, and tells me the story of why Don McLean wrote Bye, Bye Miss American Pie. I tell him how I have been on a reggae kick recently so he goes into a rant about Black Uhuru's song "Mondays" and we are just glowing at this point. Amazing how music is the real uniting religion of the world. Then he continues to blow my mind with a song by a band I have never heard of ever in my entire existence and the lyrics are so powerful that I am inserting them here:

If a picture paints a thousand words

Then why can't I paint you?
The words will never show
For you I've come to know.
If a face could launch a thousand ships
Then where am I to go?
There's no one home but you
And now you've left me too.
And when my love for life is running dry
You come and pour yourself on me
If a man could be two places at one time
I'd be with you.
Tomorrow and today
Beside you all the way
If the world should stop revolving
Spinning slowly down to die.
I'd spend the end with you
And when the world was through...
Then one by one, the stars would all go out.
Then you and I, would simply fly away.

I thought, what an amazing poem and even more amazing that one man can share with another with such confidence upon just having met. It really shows that our souls are all exactly the same. The ego is the monkey wrench in the works of "civilised" man/woman. Then he trips my mind even further and shows me this tattoo on his back of a man and woman kissing and wolves are emerging from the backs of their heads...he says that everyone has a good wolf and a bad wolf, but the one that dominates is the one that we feed (!!!) High vibrations after this point. He offered me a cigarette, then realized he had none left so he borrowed one from another smoker nearby. I told him I preferred hand rolled cigarettes (which I do, for the taste, I'm not keen on filters) so he opened up his empte pack and reached in and pulled out a half smoked bidi (a clove cigarette rolled in natural leaf) and said, "Here, I saved this for you." I lit it and puffed with a smile, knowing that he had, in fact, stopped smoking it in the past at some point so that I could enjoy the rest of it.

If you think I'm crazy by this point, it is only your ego deceiving you.

So where is this all going? Wyoming.

It is the beginning of winter once again, and it will be my 5th real mountain winter. I have been at a crossroads for a while on where to spend it due to alot of thinking and rationalizing and justifying shmustifying. The original plan was Jackson Hole, Wyoming for the simple fact that the terrain is insanely sick, and I have a place to live, since Cecilia is living there and kindly offered. But then rational mind wanted assurance of a job, and was scared of unfamiliarity and going somewhere new, and I had been bombarded by new places having traveled for the last 6 months (mas o menos). So I started to lean away from the Wyoming plan, making all these excuses why. BUT, all it took was last evening to shed light that I was on the right path, so I am sticking to the plan (If you want to call it a "plan").

On the drive home with the two drunken ladies, Cecilia took a liking to my mustard yellow Australian Op-shop $2 beanie. I am not actually thrilled about the thing but I needed a winter hat in Oz at one point and that is what I found, and it is the only warm hat I have right now and I gots ta keep the dome warm, dig? Cecilia wanted it, and seeing how happy it made her and looked way better on her beautiful blonde head than my fat brown head made me want to give it to her. If I had other hats it'd be hers no questions, but the question now was, "What will snuggle my dome without it?" With a bit of delayed swift drunken thinking, Cecilia said she had a hat for me. Then my ego kicked in with, "will it look good? will it fit right? what color is it? is it too girly?" Long story short, the hat she traded I is rad hand knit pale pastel rainbow confetti in the mostly purpl-ishblue-red spectrum and it had been waiting for my skull since its conception. I will give it back to her (or probably not!) in Wyoming. Simple.

Oh bliss.

When it is 6am and I am in boardshorts paddling around in a humongous lukewarm fish tank humming "we're all just dreamers, you know, Ive always wanted more than I could ever hold" (a lovely song by a lovely sounding lady that was on the radio when I woke this morning), and feeling that late spring southern hemisphere sun zap life into me as I catch wave after glorious perfect sized aqua-teal-quoise-marine transparent waves with schools of fish that are probably even more happy then me since they do not toil in silly matters...that is bliss...also bliss is the surprise birthday cake that my Asian family secretly and stealthily baked for me by scheming behind my back in a plot of elaborate lies...this cake was so chocolately delicious that it was "fucking" chocolately delicious. All several million of my taste buds had multiple simultaneous orgasms and said "ohhhhhh thats fucking gooooooood" as my tongue spasmd out of control. "That's fucking good cake," I exclaimed. Amazing people are what make life amazing and happiness is pretty rad but I really do think it is better when shared. Especially with people where there is a huge language and cultural barrier but they feel like long lost cousins after spending a month with them. They also got huge "Happy Birthday" heart candles on sticks for the cake. That is bliss. My wish will come true for sure.

Eternal mindfuck of the foodless brain

I am doing a lemon juice/cayenne pepper/maple syrup/ginger master cleanse; day 2 of a supposed 8...more mentally traumatised than physically at the moment. Why am I doing this my mind keeps asking. Food is so good to you, it says, so tasty, why deny it the pleasure of being processed by your stomach. It feels sort of similar to a drug withdrawl, which I guess it sort of is. We use food everyday, so take it away for a few and the brain needs to adjust...physically I feel fine, a few tummy rumbles here and there but since I am doing absolutely nothing except lazing on the beach and reading and Agatha Christie novel I am not using too much energy. It would be great to not think about delicious everything all the time. I really want to pound the bottle of maple syrup in one gulp, mmmmm sugar. My brain is weak, I can say that's for sure as I am having trouble typing anything remotely sufficient of blah, yes, remotely sufficient blah is what I am lacking today. Hopefully I will have a glorious bowel movement soon and all my toxic worries will be flushed down the toilet and briong me ever closer to the personal nirvana that I seek. Beer is delicious as well.

watching the rain and feeding the birds bread

Will this keyboard work for me on this site? Yup seems to be working, I think it is only in my email that it acts like a palsy. Its raining today. Cool, got the weather out of the way. On to the daydreaming. I want to ride my bicycle around the world. First New Zealand, with a surfboard and a skateboard, on a bicycle, and stealth camp at some truly LOTR locales, and smile and talk to strangers and eat sustainably harvested (aka dumpster dived) bread. I don't want to work, but I do need money to buy plane tickets and other food that is not sustainably harvested. When I do work I want to do strange jobs that only last for about a month but are round the clock and pay well, so I can piss off guilt free. I have worked and mysteriously quit too many jobs where they had the impression I was going to stay longer. One look at my resume and it ain'y hard to tell, folks. I havent worked since April 21st except the one Tshirt TV promo I did when I was in NYC in July...it is now Novemeber 1st (birthday month!) and I still have money left somehow plus an extra $570 that my friend paid me back twice because he forgot he paid me the first time (didn't thin that was possible, but it has become a very stateable fact)...so miracles do happen, and it looks like he will be getting a late Christmas present, very late, because who knows (who's who? do you?) when someone will be employing me again. Hopefully it will be the Jackson Hole snowboard school, fingers crossed. All I have to do is that silly monotonous applying and experience proving bla blahhhhh. What happened to the days where you walk up to a place with a smile on your face and say, "OK boss, I'm ready to work!" and they give you a job (and a season pass to the most epic place that starts with a J and ends with a Hole!). This is the ideal projection for my 2010 winter...we'll see. Bad Religion has a song called "10 in 2010" and I have no idea what they mean but if 10 weird things happen in 2010 you will find me rocking out in a corner, stinking a bit, most likely from my socks. Socks suck. Thats whay there is only one letter difference between the two words. Luckily I do not wear socks too often. Minus the patchouli, I am a sandal wearing hippie who does not own any tie died clothing. DO NOT wear sandals if you are going to be mosh pitting at a punk show. My feet hated me after that night...shoes really do offer advanced protection far superior to that of my Keen Tijuana's (made in China, but soon babies will be made in China too). I do not wear underwear either, and after I pee I let the last few drops soak right into my pants for that natural musk feel. I'll leave you with that, you who have chosen to read this far into this version of this daydream brought to you by this underwearless sockless deodorantless tiedyeless and at-the-moment-bikeless ( : ( ) (?)) attached stringless free spirit. Namaste.

Daydreams

I'm a dreamer, day and night dreams. I could sit somewhere, anywhere really, and comfortably stare into space for Guinness Book amounts of time. Often I ponder the "what ifs", but not too seriously of course. Why bother doing anything seriously besides breathing? Sometimes the weirder area (which spans quite a large section) of my mental takes over and really gets, well, weird. My imagination knows no limits. I think about other people's lives, where they have been and where they are going, if they are stressed or happy or if their face naturally conveys those expressions. I imagine people pooping, because everyone poos, even the queen of England sits and strains after a big greasy meal. Old people and babies have the worst smelling poo I think. I heard my grandmother taking a poo in her eighties once, and I will never forget that sound as long as I live, the smell sticks to my mind even more. But enough about poo, what about being the random people I only catch a glimpse of as I pass by in a car or train, or they pass by in a car or train and we stare deep into eachothers souls and cause time to snail crawl for one fraction of a millifraction of history...who are they, would we be friends or enemies, how long have they been awake today, do they eat meat, where did they grow up, what does their voice sound like, what is there biggest insecurity, are their hands rough or smooth. There was this kid in my elementary school who had really rough hands and bad breath all the time. Rough like wrinkly and withered rough. Morning breath type stink, always. What caused that? What do my hands feel like? Does my breath ever stink like that besides in the morning? Why does bad breath even matter? What makes a smell "bad"? A garbage man couldn't tell you. A little kid in India walking on the trash piles in Mumbai (Bombay, whatever) couldn't tell you. I guess I think trash smells bad. What did people do before deodorant? I visited this farm recently that is a historical site now and the guide was telling us that they used to bathe only once a week. They would wash their face and forearms daily but thats it...when did somoeone decide it was better to wear perfume or cologne than to just let your natural odor run rampant? Interesting stuff I talk about with myself indeed...smelly stuff in this episode. My feet smell right now, so maybe that is subconsciously making me think of smells. How about physical pain? How much would it hurt to really get smashed by a heavy object moving at high velocity? Would I even have time to feel the pain...it must really suck to suffer before dying. When I get old just pull my plug WHEN I SAY SO, got it? Why do different parts of the day feel different? Why do I feel silly typing a blog? I miss my bicycle. Its been too long since I have seen it, let alone ridden it. Snowboarding is fun and I am good at it which makes it twice as fun. It is the only thing tangible that I am good at, the other thing I quite excel at is daydreaming!

Yet again, life ceases to amaze. . .

After leaving Jindy the plan was to go wwoof somewhere near Melbourne until my parents arrived; to save money which was already running low with more than 2 months to go, but also just to wwoof as it has been something I have been wanting to do for ages...willing workers on organic farms, wwoof.org if you don't know....stay on someone's farm/property for x amount of time, work a bit each day, and in return get housed and fed...simple. I consider it a free education among other things. I grew up in compact suburbia, so tho I might seem like a hippie grass feeder dirtball, I am actually just a product of blue collar over commercialized "society"...my fate has been pulling me a different way for the last 4 years, so I have been keen to learn different ways of living (living in a van, living on a bicycle, getting everything for free, etc.) Annnnyways, there is an online bulletin of hosts who need people so I scoped it and contacted this guy who had a private stretch of beach just a walk of woods away from his self sufficient eco-property...too good to be true, yup...he said he didn't have anything until October...a few days later, one day before leaving Jindy I saw a fresh post from a Dutch family outside Melbourne who needed wwooffers for odd jobs on their property.

That property is where I am now, sitting by the fire, drinking a beer, on the MacBook Pro, connected and not all at the same time....I have been here for about 10 days (Hitched all the way from Jindabyne to Packenham in just 6 rides, 2 really long ones, and a night camped out on the beach at Lakes Entrance) The family is Dutch, and emigrated here 2 years ago to provide a better life for their three young daughters and themselves. In a nutshell, I have started learning a little Dutch, built a greenhouse, planted oak trees, chainsawed tree limbs, made a compost pile, fed the horses, chickens, and pig several times, made many fires, shared many many almost too many (never!) delicious meals, shared stories and laughs, went to Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market, and visited one of Australia's oldest farm properties, Gulf Station...all in ten days...oh I went to the 6th grade school play, and got to witness Monday morning assembly at the girls' primary school on Footy dress up day. Like a sponge soaking up the endless moisture of life's nutrients with no capacity to overflow, ever.

Last Day of Winter!!!

Awesome! I have had two last days of winter spent strapped into a snowboard in one year. Almost seems like a magic trick...I have been known to pull rabbits out of hats. I am in Jindabyne, NSW, a small mountain town on the south end of Lake Jindabyne. Staying with old mate Grover midweek and then for the weekend I couchsurfed with Becca on the other side of town. This is due to the fact that Grover does not pay rent and the people whose ski condo he lives at only come on the weekends. So to not impose I just act like a kid with divorced parents and go spend the weekend elsewhere. Got to snowboard 3 days so far, poached 2 and clipped a ticket in the carpark today as the weather was shitty and I knew people would be leaving early.

Ah, where has this past month taken me. About half the East coast of Australia, that's where. Pure hitch hiking at its finest, with public transport only paid for getting into and out of Sydney. It went like this :
From Moloolaba to Gold Coast for 7 out of 9 days of good to sick surf with the Ecuadorians. Surfing multiple sessions per day, eating, and chilling out on the leather backyard couch reading this weird but captivating Dostoyevsky book, "The Brothers Karamazov" (I'll review it when finished, its a long one). Surf videos were watched to stoke us out for the sessions...I didn't come out of any tubes but Henk and Ricky sure did, cabrones.
Left Goldy and hitched down the coast to Nambucca heads to couchsurf with my man Doug...an elder who is very young at heart and enjoys his "ciggys". An eclectic pack rat living in a sort of jimmy rigged museum with treasures everywhere, and a bird feeder instead of a television to watch. Nambucca was a beautiful natural spot on the coast at the mouth of the Nambucca river, with the town on one side and a nature preserve on the other. There was a few waves breaking in the rivermouth and a right point just north of it. I didn't surf as there was no equipment to borrow. Doug and I had an enjoyable barbecue in the park after the aboriginals were done using the public barbecue, yup, public, free barbecue...genius!!!
Cruised down the coast 2 days later with Sydney as my destination to visit my old friend Ernesto, who lives in Manly, a northern coastal suburb...The bummer here was that as I was hitch hiking I was starting to feel quite ill and knew that I had a virus spreading throughout my body. A fever had set in by the evening and I was feeling downright lousy. I spent the weekend in bed, just eating fruits, and taking some echinacea and vitamin C....By Monday I was full strength again. Manly was a suburb with a beach, which I only surfed once on one of Ernesto's boards. My springsuit was not warm enough for the winter water temps, and then the waves went flat, so I guess that was a good thing. Ernesto worked all week so I entertained myself by reading and walking and eating alot, things I am really good at!
Trained out of Sydney to the south a good ways so Id have a better chance of hitching with my final destination being Jindy. I took my time and really went with the flow. Spending one night at the windiest rest stop in history. The next night I was in the beautiful sleepy little coastal town of Tathra, where I camped out on the rocky headland just a few feet above sea level, and awoke to a warm sun.
I made it to Jindy by the late afternoon and proceeded to party hard with Grover at the Banjo Paterson Inn, and Wednesday night is payday for the whole town so it definitely gets crazy. Hungover altitude headache snowboarding ensued the next day. I got radical for sure, bro.

Quick note

Been reading "Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin. He is an English nomad and travel writer. This particular book is about a journey to Oz to learn about aboriginal songlines; their ancestral maps of the land that explain each clan's, or "dreaming's" history....interesting shit to say the least. He gets rained out for a brief period and is holed up in a caravan for ten days or so. He brought a stack of old travel notebooks with him to go through and he picks and packs some of the more useful points into the current book. This dude has been everywhere that any nomads have been, gnarly. He is just amused by man's instinctual desire to wander, the nature of human restlessness, as I. Here's a snippet from that section of the book"

"You cannot travel on the path before you have become the Path itself" - Gautama Buddha

"Most of us, not being heroes, dawdle through life, mis-time our cues, and end up in our various emotional messes. The Hero does not. The Hero - and this is why we hail him as a hero - takes each ordeal as it comes, and chalks up point after point." - Bruce Chatwin

"Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death." - Pascal, Pensees

Karaoke night!

It is my self proclaimed last night in Mooloolaba.  Sitting here drinking some red lambrusco (fancy name for ten dollar four liter box wine a.k.a. goon) getting my vocal chords warm.  A quite relaxing beachy week has gone by.  Four out of six sunrises, slept in for the last two, because I could.  Mostly me, laying on the beach, reading Bruce Chatwin's "Songlines", people watching, surfer watching, meditating, soaking rays.  My sister and her colleagues (Team America) were busy working at their respective schools all week, and were only around in the evening.  I was breakfast and dinner cook for several delicious (not just self-proclaimed) meals.  Tonight was baked albacore with a veggie medley stewed in a tomato base.  Friday night found us getting saucy in the apartment before heading out to Vibes for the dance fest.  I made it in under the radar of the flip flop police, and proceeded to get my feet extra dirty/sticky.  I love being a keen social observer, on a budget.  I did not drop a dime at the bar, but I did pick up a twenty cent piece on the way out.  Saturday night was mellow as I had absorbed entirely too much sun.  Melted into the couch and watched "Michael Clayton" with George Clooney.  it was just barely good enough to keep me awake but leave me nice and sleepy at the end.  As far as waves go, ha, I got on my sister's rented boogie board and got totally rad in some dribbly little shorebreak.  Today, however, homeboy aaron (one of the teachers), had fenagled a seven foot log from one of his faculty.  I'll give him credit, he gave it his all, managed to get into a few, just not stand up.  I patiently awaited my turn and was rewarded handsomely.  Now, I am not the keenest on longboards, but when you travel as light as me you must chameleon what you can get.  I groveled around for a bit, dropping in here and there, getting my groove back like Stella.  Finally, I got on a fun little cruisy left and did a longboard-ish off the lip finish.  Thats it, thats all I needed.  Stoked I be mate!  Lucky for me, Aaron has to work all day tomorrow so my plan is to surf until my arms fall off in the morning, because I am fiending, that's why!  Post surf tomorrow I am loading up and heading out.  Destination Gold Coast to stay with Henk de Bruin, my mate from the 2003 Goldie days.  Right now tho, which is the only moment I am concerned with, is hokey pokey karaoke time!

Know awareness

These were my thoughts this fine morning as I sat on the balcony, soaking sun on my belly, and smoking a hand rolled cigarette. Each one of us living breathing beings contains all of the knowledge of the universe. This cache of knowledge was deposited in us the moment we took our first breath. From that point on, we strive for awareness of this knowledge. Learning, experiencing, living to gain awareness. Some things we are eager to be aware of, others seem useless and maybe they are (but they still have a use, which is BEING useless) , and many things we must be aware of in order for simple survival. It is my duty as a part of this network of celestial energy to keep a watchful mind's eye on what I need to become aware of. There are no coincidences, no luck, just a continous flow of energy that, once tapped into, provides further and deeper awareness. Throw caution to the wind. Become a chameleon made of sponge. Soak it all up and assume the many roles you were given life for. There is no smart or stupid, just varying levels of awareness. You think you don't know but you have know idea(s). Soak it up friends, from the shadows to the sunshine, it's out there.

Five sunrises for alive prizes. . .

When my plane landed, the sun was coming up. The next morning I awoke while it was still dark (due to my biological clock) but luckily alot of people were still up from the night before due to the graduation/birthday festivities. Being no longer inebriated I assumed the position of van shuttle driver (ironically a white van). Stick shift with the left hand on the left side of the road at 5am up a mountain is how and where I went with 5 others passenged. Mount Coot-ha to be exact, right outside of Brizzy with the best view of the city and the second sunrise. Sunday morning found me on the roof the shed, partly because there were 7 bodies occupying the couch surfing room but also because it seemed like the right place to sleep. I was rewarded handsomely with a quite psychadelic sky transforming through a range of oranges and blues to the eventual blaring yellowhite of the new day. Monday was another peaceful wakeup on the shed, aside for the fact that I slapped the tin roof with my flip flop a few times to wake up Thomas so he wouldn't miss his flight. The flip flop vibrated the whole shed all the way down to Diego who thought the police were raiding the place. Sorry Diego, it was just my Havaiana. This morning found me waking indoors for the first time, at my sister Katina's place in Mooloolaba. My clock is now adjusted and my physical was wanting more rest but my psychic managed to conjur some motivation. I am now across the street from the Pacific, after all. I wandered out and across still a bit sleepy to a quite wide awake beach. Young and old, two legged and four, walking swimming talking and living. I sat for a bit and watched the fireball cage-free egg yolk brighten to a bright bulb hue. Breathe in, breathe out. I'm alive.
So far my days have been enjoyable as they should be. In Brizzy I was staying at the "Forest", sort of a United Nations of travelers and lurkers of all sorts. A one eyed one horned flying purple people eater would fit right in without question. Family meals, dumpster dives, spliffs, stories, laughter, and sleeping space were just a few of the things shared there. There was also a slightly tame baby possum that would come around ever night to get fed leftovers, right out of my hand. I thought it ironic that I had once killed a possum on my bicycle, and here I was giving another one life. Se la vie.
To get to Mooloo I took the good'ol thumb route and made it in just two rides and about ninety minutes of walking. Only 10 minutes of thumb-out were actually needed. My first ride came from three Israeli boys in Toyota 4x4 who were heading all the way up to Darwin to work on a cattle station. Only one of them spoke good English but that did not stop us from sharing plenty of laughs. We stopped at a bayside picnic area for lunch and they just straight setup a kitchen with the quickness. Tomato onion garlic and cucumber was cut up with imported Israli olive oil and seasoning. Tahini was made from scratch right in front of my eyes and it was, yeah, BOMB! Also a eggy bread fry was produced on the camp stove. They each had a task, besides feeding me, and they were incredibly organized and swift about the whole procedure, not one movement wasted. I said "shalom" to them as they drove off and caught my next ride within a few minutes from mMichael, a tradie (9 to 5er) on his way home from work. He had the heat blasting, window up, wearing a jacket over his work clothes. I was in a t-shirt and shorts, I rolled the window down. He had just been traveling around Asia for a while. I got dropped off just a few Ks from Moo and walked the coast to the desty. Small, clean surf greeted my eyes as the first glimpse of the Aussie Pacific I have seen in 5 years, surely a good omen. Surf will come soon, a board must be acquired but a rush to get one is not a necessity. More explorations to come.

The next sun will rise in Oz

I was sitting in the Atlantic this morning watching the sun rise higher and higher as I was awarded some fun little waves. A proper sendoff for what is to come. The next time I will see the sun in a similar spot will be when I land in Brisbane on Friday morning, Thursday the 23rd will be completely nonexistent due to date line crossings, rad.

My towel will have some Atlantic salt on it cross hemispheres towards the Pacific, also rad. Its the little things that keep the energy flowing. I lined up a flophouse of sorts in Brisbane called "The Forest" thru couchsurfing.org. The loose plan is to soak in the Brizzy weekend scene while on the hunt for a bicycle which will be my main source of transpo for the next 4 months. If I'm going to be paying for fuel it might as well taste good, eh?

New York has treated me well for the last four weeks. Kicked it with the family, relaxed in Bayville, scored some worthy surf, met an interesting man, and an interesting and beautiful woman. I need to start using "intriguing" instead of "interesting" The man was beautiful too, but you know what I mean. I also managed to put some cash in my pocket and got a sick Timbuk2 messenger bag for free (just by being a "modern nomad," seriously).

Money is funny, that's why they rhyme. See, I have been training myself to not stress about acquiring money in the last year. I have seen full well the effect of that stress on mine and others' lives and have no desire for that kind of energy block. The Aussies don't say "no worries" for no reason. With my new found attitude money finds me. Moreso, the generosity of the universe finds me as I am kind to it, making offerings of pure love and taking no more than I need. Simplicity is bliss, not ignorance.

Today is already a great day and it is only 10:21 am according to the clock. We'll see what the rest has in store.