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.
