Well, where do I start? Housekeeping I guess. We have now hit fourteen million views as of last night. I get no great thrill from this at this point, honestly have no idea how many of these hits are search engines or AI straining the blog's innards for material to pulverize and steal and contort and how many are real live human beings?
After 14k plus posts, I have put a lot of material out there and I do see people hitting on old stuff every day, then reading the posts to and fro, so I know some actual humans do visit on occasion. Perhaps I have reached some critical mass tipping point?
In any case, on the apex of my twentieth year scribing said website, I am proud of my consistent production, while also conscious of how much more reader involvement I had way back once upon a time. Oh well.
And this last two million hits came awful fast, whether machine intelligence, monkey or homo sapien I am glad somebody is still checking in. Greetings, future robot masters, I swear I was only half kidding when I wrote that stuff.
I was thinking about some of the things I hate in this life, list really isn't that long. But I despise plastic fencing, at least until it melts anyway. Then it looks like something Dali did. Or Christo.
What else? I hate the smell of liver. Don't like the taste of Dr. Pepper. I hate looking at the names of dead people in my contacts list but somehow can't summon the strength to erase them. I hate looking at a sideview of my stomach in the mirror or the ever increasing difficulty I have in cutting my toenails. I hate waking up every morning with new pains in my legs, hips and feet. I hate opening bottles and potato chips and pretty much everything else that requires manual dexterity. If the generations are truly greying, why not give the arthritis ridden old folks like me a little break? Not content to have long white rope like hairs coming out of my nostrils, they are sprouting on my arm. And I am getting so many spots and tags on my chest and neck I now look like a dalmatian. And don't even get me going on the prostate thing.
I hate that people are buying their clothes at Walmart and Amazon and anything hand crafted, expressive and colorful is now out so that we can all look the same and our homes can have the same boring furniture and decorative objects. I rue the death of brick and mortar. When will the mass produced mid century drek follow the K-mart brand mission furniture and all the other co-opted design fails right down the toilet hole? Heard the young are starting to look at Old Masters. Well, hallelujah for that. Unfortunately nearly all of the antique experts are expired now and their institutional knowledge lost to time and the wind, but I am sure that we can rely on these lovely young decorators and influencers who have never opened a book to adequately guide us through the upcoming design wilderness. Or better yet, let AI do it. It's always, sometimes, occasionally right.
I hate that my framer has abandoned me.
I hate not being able to speak to my late brother Buzz. Or Garry Cohen. Miss them deeply. Bob Teague too.
Miss the crunch of Peruvian flake but it's been 43 years, guess I should get over it. But if those Korean missiles were in the air...
What else do I hate? On account of my and my wife's health we don't travel and haven't together for a long while. I miss Kauai, want to hit the marble caves of Chile while I am alive and can still walk, probably won't ever happen.
Which brings me back to a much longer list, things that I love and things I have been able to see and do in my lifetime.
When I flip the last pages of life’s great book
Can I forget to mention the strange gerunuk?
A gigantic neck
With legs splayed akimbo
Part deer part giraffe, it’s taxonomy in limbo.
In far off Samburu I encountered the lair
Browsing the trees
Its branches laid bare.
One of the oddities I will never forget
It joins a camp memory
A pennsylvania red eft.
I swam with a ray
In Xelha near Tulum
Whose leopard spot body
Nearly caused me to swoon.
The fer de lance tree snake
Caused us both such a fright
You have twenty minutes to live
When you first feel its bite.
I’m sure there are others
Whose weirdness compares,
The gila monster maybe
or Malaysian sun bear
A crested eagle in Nairobi
It sat on a post
Of all of life’s birds
Its beauty hit most
I should not forget
The two headed snake
I once saw at the zoo
Going or coming
it gave me a shake.
So many creatures, so much sheer luck
But I will always remember that first gerunuk.
Wish I had a picture, I think my ex wife got that photo album. Glad I was able to see Africa, even with my companion at the time, it was an early bucket list item. Took a hot air balloon over the Serengeti, landed in a field of zebra and wildebeest for a catered lunch once the support team tracked us down. Treetops was epic. Ditto Masai Mara. The year before the latter a lion had crashed through a plate glass door and atee a zebra on the bed while his house guest cowered in the bathroom. Now that is action, folks.
I am happy for some of life' lucky chances. I visited Chichen Itza on the day of the Festival of the Serpent and celebrated with about 25 thousand Mayans. Epic. Woke up on the beach in Eilat, city of thieves, with my money artfully slit from the bottom of my sleeping bag and my throat not cut. Had a mom smart enough to lock up the television and make us read from a ten thousand book library. Skied expert runs my first day on the mountain. Had several multiple goal soccer games. Caught the Stones on Mick's birthday in 72. Saw Bowie on Broadway in Elephant Man. Caught Lightning Hopkins, Big Mama Thornton at the Academy. Mose Allison too.
Saw a double rainbow in Banff that is a picture that will remain in my mind til I die. Ditto the hike down Haleakala, Nueba on the Red Sea, Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, too many incredible places to list.
I am happy that I got to meet and befriend so many heroes, writers and artists. Zelazny, Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Griffin, Maloof, Allan Adler, Jack Kirby, S. Clay Wilson, Stan Sakai, Kalu Rinpoche, Yenur, Leary, Owsley, Arthur Lee, Jerry, way too many to list.
Happy that I got to eat a papaya king hot dog when they were great, truly the filet mignon of franks. Long time ago.
Happy for my old friends. The ones that stuck with me from New York, very few of those extant. Doug and Abby. The seventies crew, Dave, Jeff, Melissa, Ricardo, Kevin, Shawn, Lena, Ron, Pat, Jerry, Tom, Big Mike. Brett. The newer ones, Barry, Bill, Cam, Chip, Retha, Doug, Renee, Steve, Jim, Debbie, Michael, Steve. Kip, Peter, Mick, RoxAnn, Ken, Kent, Alyssa, James, Lois, Richard, Bob, Jeff, Phil, Paul, Dixon, who else?
Plenty more.
The peeps that are there with you every day. My wife, most of all. Send love her way.
Love to all my friends, family and readers. Keep living your life your way in spite of current trend and convention.
Peace.
1 comment:
“…like tears…in rain.”
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