The Gong

Living just down the road from the University of California, Berkeley, certainly has its benefits. Today's weather was gorgeous, and I was privileged to attend a luncheon given in the backyard of a professor of economics who had just returned from Washington D.C. where he had been acting as an advisor to the administration. I asked him to explain, in a few words, the latest reversal of fortune (heh) and to give us an explanation of the apparent detumescence of morality in our national body.

He said to me, "Devil he told me to roll, how to roll the log tonight, nobody's fault but mine. Brother he showed me the gong, brother he showed me the ding dong ding dong. Got a monkey on my back, trying to save my soul tonight, how to kick that gong to light, gonna change my ways tonight, nobody's fault but mine."

Stop and consider.

"If a six-teated dog runs ten miles an hour shittin' splinters, how swift need she be to shit a rockin' chair?" A scientific facet was revealed in GV, who said the dog must probably be swimming to shit a rocking chair whole, though she might drop it in pieces while napping after eating a possum belly. (Woodrell)

Seldom Seen

It took a week to go through all the images I shot in Oregon and Humboldt County in California, searching every corner and dark area, making sure that I had not accidentally taken a picture of the elusive (and blurry) Sasquatch. Well, no sign of the Bigfoot in my files, sorry to say, but I did capture something nearly as interesting - a seldom seen thing of wonder, the Human Pyramid. When I entered my room, number 101, I saw this through my window and grabbed the shot, then ran outside to get a closer look, but by then it had vanished. The grass was flattened in its place and there was a residue of laughter - but that might have just been the noise of the river. I don't know.

Where are my boots?

‎"I sat up, fully dressed except for my shoes. I was hungover but hadn't had a drink. I was an elite mercenary armed with nothing but poetry."

Last Call

Wrangling (rough), Oregon (eastern)

Hunter's Lodge

Nearing the end of a productive and inspiring road trip, really only a long day's drive to get home, I have feelings of melancholy already and so I sit next to an old guy at the bar at the Hunter's Lodge, someone who looks like he's been around a lot, and ask him, "What the fuck?"

"Here's one way of doing it, and by the way my name's Zeno. You can continue on your way home, but each day travel only half of the distance between your departure point and your home. That way, you're still doing the right thing, but it will take much longer. 'Course, eventually you'll only be moving fractions of inches a day and it will look, to everyone around you, that you are actually home."

"But Zeno, if I never technically reach home, how can I get back to work?"

"Young man, after talking to you for a few minutes, I think I can say that you've never been closer than a few fractions of an inch to the real world anyway and you'll never notice the difference."

So, again, just like it always was, it is what it is. And, I'm the Americanist.

The Lostine

It's warm in this remote campground on the Lostine River, and the big horseflies are irritating so I decide to swat some of them. Only, to make things more interesting (and my hand reflexes are still pretty quick), I use a small ball-peen hammer (the flat end) and start swinging. The hammer hitting the table makes quite a racket and after 15 kills the neighboring campers have all turned their heads towards me. "It's all right, I shout - this hammer was made in the good old US of A!" They all turn away, shaking the ice in their cocktail glasses, indicating their approval.

WHAM! Number 16. I'm the Americanist.

Cheese Fries

Before leaving on a road trip I purchase novels at the used book store, my criteria for choosing books being the story's location, the cover art and title, and the quick descriptions inside the book jacket. So, I bought a qualifier, a "dark delirious journey down the highway of the contemporary soul...brutal, perverse and deeply alarming, a diabolical novel of the interstate." Perfect, right? Kicking and twisting the sleeping bag into a knot, waking up every half hour listening for clues in the silent forest, expecting the car to explode spontaneously as we cruise on the backroads. Then, about half way through this "mescaline slurpee" I turn the page and a small cash register receipt falls out for food the previous owner of the book had bought: CHZ Fry and 24oz soda and it was dated September 10, 2001. True story. I'm the Americanist.