Must Have Been the Roses

It must have been the roses. 

Yesterday I tuned up my old fixie in preparation for what I was hoping would be a nice peaceful cruise around the venue. She got new tubes, a chain adjustment, buffing on the shiny side and lube on the greasy side. She, Trixie, was dressed to the nines and ready to rock. I even went so far as to customize a chain attachment to the trucks bike mount so that any well-intentioned but wheel-less Deadheads would not be tempted, something I heartily laughed at walking to the ticket like. You leave the keys in the truck but you chain and lock your bike? Right. 

I had built an additional hour into the schedule to accommodate the bike tour, which immediately backfired when traffic slowed to a screaming halt at Lake Kachess on Washington’s infamous I-90. Deciding that I would not lose a video op, we pulled over at the Vantage crossing of the Columbia and I filmed the remainder of the commute, right up to a nifty job of parking, backing around a small drum circle, a lemonade vendor and a frisbee toss. I was late, there would be no ride, but damn I like the initial vibe of this place they call The Gorge. 

I change clothes, adding the last minute tie-dye Dead T  bought in ’93 for a Chicago show, and shorts. I wrap my Husky hoodie around my waist, pop an ice cold Pacifico, lather up a been and rice burrito with fire sauce and break off a casual piece of chocolate chip dosage. I decide not to try to smuggle in a GoPro, take a photo of the parking area designation (17) and set sail for the concert lawn in a half-step too-dal-loo. I feel good, the four hour drive behind. I am already scanning the crowd because as you know I love hippie chicks. And I have come to the right place. 

We spend way too long in security line, I could have easily hid a GoPro, probably even the Canon and with some creativity, a couple of beers as well. Once inside I set out to do some recon work, starting way left, the area once known as the Phil Zone. The sun is slowly sinking behind the stage, it is a windy 78, and I feel the lightness surrounding the legendary combination of music and natural beauty coming on.

Stylishly late the boys take the stage, noodle a tune-up and John Mayer counts off the opener with a series of jumps. He is the energizer of the troupe, Bobby playing second fiddle. The wind creates a vacuum and I am not pleased with the vocal mix or the drums at my current location. After Bertha I being a migration more to center. Now to find some open space without barging right in front of someone already with a stake. I find it. 

Bobby is game but his voice carries the edge of ten thousand shows, melody second to key lyrical accentuation and dramatic shouting punches, see Sampson & Deliliah as example. He is missing lyrics and the spatial separation between us creates a sight/sound delay that I have always disliked. But the band is tight, Billy and Mickey are hammering their usual big drum backbeat and Oteil Burnbridge, the first time I have seen him, is impressive, masterfully commanding the six string bass that allows John Mayer and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti to exchange flaming arpeggio laser blasts. They are also doing something different with the song structure, not simply slowing way down, think Minglewood Blues, or speeding way up ala Truckin', but adding measures of well defined emphasis, mostly holding the four an extra measure before either taking it to the climatic five or back to the calm coda of the one and starting anew. I am liking their dedication to the structure, providing a healthy interplay between the known and the improvisational unknown. As soon as I find a video of New Speedway Boogie and Black Peter, you will be in that know. Because you need to know. 

They submit a masterful opening set, the dancing crowd hollering in approval. I am impressed by Mayer’s eloquent solos and his Garcia-like attention to harmonic drama. He has already tickled my spine with a few exact replicas, so good that if one was to close their eyes and just listen…..

I am ambushed at intermission and forced to pay $17 for a beer. Oh well, I am not going to let being gouged at the Gorge interrupt my bliss. Not tonight. 

The sun has set and the band is back for round two - the magical opening D notes of Playin’ in the Band. I have made my way closer to the speaker station and the wind has calmed enough for me to hear the distinction in harmonies, the bond between the drumming brothers, the waining but still powerful presence of Bobby Ace and the virtuosity tossed like a garden salad between Oteil, Mayer and Chimenti, these guys are en fuego. 

It dawns on me that it has been 47 years since I first stood in a Dead audience. A lot has happened over that time, deals have gone down and it has indeed been a long strange trip for everyone even remotely connected with this magical cast of characters. I am happy now as I sway to the vibe. It seems that every time I look at someone they are mouthing the lyrics. Everybody knows all the words. I laugh out out unabashed in the mirthiness of the moment. It is good to be alive. I recall other moments like this when in the trance, zoning, peaceful, full of hope for the future and connected to the band by cosmic eternity. 

The band is back for an encore, US Blues, John and Bobby sharing lyrical jabs in 4/4 time. And then just as quickly as she fired it up, it is over and I am slowly walking over the grass and dirt that moments before tickled the bare feet and open hearts of 20,000 heads. I am so glad that I made this sojourn, saw Bobby, Billy and Mickey one more time and the next generation, Oteil, John and Jeff for the first time. It has been a magnificent evening and I follow a dancing group all the way back to my truck where Trixie is still there patiently waiting her turn. 

It must have been the roses, but it might have been the band. It might have been the river or the color of the sand. I sing in gratitude of the ships upon the sea, it might have been the moonlight.

Or it might have been just me. 

Thank you gentlemen. 

Grey Folded

Grey Folded. 

Someone asked me last night if I could gift tonight’s set list to Dead & Company so they would oblige and preform my musical requests, what tunes would earn placement on said list. OK, good one. Additionally as I remain two (I think) behind on The Streak (consecutive blogging days), and I have already spoken today on one of the main issues facing American democracy, I will indulge in this fantasy and provide my suggestions. To wit:

SET ONE

Mexicali Blues

Uncle John’s Band

Looks Like Rain

Deep Ellum Blues

Eyes of the World

Scarlet Begonias>

Fire on the Mountain>

Cassidy 

SET TWO

US Blues

Sugar Magnolia 

Candyman

Feel Like a Stranger

Alabama Getaway

Bird Song>

Shakedown Street>

Stella Blue

ENCORE

Tennessee Jed>

Deal

ENCORE TWO

China Cat Sunflower>

I know You Rider>

And we Bid you Goodnight

I would die a happy man. That excluded temporarily as grand finale, I will present to you the real deal, as preformed live tonight at The Gorge, in tomorrow’s post. 

Until then dear one’s, fare thee well. 

I am a Journalist

Truly today I wish I could say I am a journalist. Although I toiled for many years in the publishing industry, I was on the sales, marketing, distribution side of the house. The closest I got to a newsroom was an ill-fated all-sports weekly called Island Sportsline back in the early 80s. The premise was superbly simple, do what the established local rag wouldn’t, cover more sports. To be fair, that paper, The Bainbridge Review, has a long and storied history, being at the very heart of the Japanese Internment debacle in 1942 and the basis for David Guterson’s masterpiece Snow Falling on Cedars. I think our tiny 10 page salmon wrapper made it for about a dozen editions before sending out a financial SOS and eventually tossing the towel. I co-authored the front page opinion column and tried to channel my inner Jim Murray, in colossal failure. I remember going to play a round of golf in metaphorical commentary on the agony of defeat as we shut her down (and I missed a two foot putt.)

I bring this up today for obvious reasons. We are under attack. Our very democracy, the rule of law and the Constitution by which we live is being erased like so many pages heavy with white-out. The hate mongers on the right (not even far) have been echoing the violent rhetoric of their fearful leader and calling for the distinctly uncivil felony of not only labeling the media as enemy, but in gaslighting these soft minded lemmings into doing the unthinkable. Killing journalists. I am sick to my stomach at this appalling tactic, as in some authoritarian, fascist and dystopian Unites States, there is a bounty on the freedoms of the press. 

I suppose that the red handed criminals running amok in trump’s white house secretly celebrate today as they plot and conspire against American morals, ethics and civilities simply for the sake of more power, another judge and higher walls. We are under attack folks. Maybe you didn’t notice that 575 people were arrested while peacefully protesting the ginned-up border crisis including a US Representative. In Tacoma and Portland, federal stormtroopers we called in to keep Mothers, Daughters, Wives, Sisters and Aunts from voicing their guaranteed rights to counter-point. The Bully-in-Chief strikes again. And will again.

Until we, united, decide that it WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. Nidoto Nai Yoni. 

That means, as one of my favorite all-time journalists, Emmett Watson of the old Seattle PI, used to write, KEEP THE BASTARDS OUT. I have taken editorial liberty with EW’s pithy temerity, updating it for modern usage:

VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT. 

Today I am a journalist. 

Drop in Eternity's Bucket

A quarter of a century between. I realize that twenty-five years is a relative drop in the bucket of eternity, but it seems like another lifetime ago now. As I sit making logistical plans for tomorrow nights sojourn to the Gorge Amphitheater for see Dead & Co. 

Should you not know, and yes I really that there remains a few who don’t, Dead & Company is the latest mashup of three of the four surviving members of the Grateful Dead, Bob Weir, and drummers Billy Kruetzmann and Mickey Hart. Bassist Phil Lesh is doing his own gigs and for reasons that I don’t completely understand not playing with this ensemble. Rounding out the Company is keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, bassist Oteil Burbridge and the man tasked, like it or not, to fill Jerry’s shoes, John Mayer. Consider the awesome responsibility here, a mountain not even the phenomenal Trey Anastasio could successfully scale. I have seen enough video of this band to make the critical assessment, along with the fact that I have never seen a show at the Gorge, a sin right up there with not having claimed Rainier, yet, either, so this one was easy. And its tomorrow night. 

For full disclosure, I have been a Dead Head since 1971. My sister and her boyfriend at the time turned me on and that love light has been shinning ever since. It didn’t take much. There was something in there above and beyond the music, combining magic, mayhem and mystery. The beat got me, ripping a whole in my consciousness and filling it with a sort of cosmic insight, as Jerry tossed fireworks and lasers into my brain. I remember listening on headphones late one night, critiquing side one of a four disk album (Skull & Roses) with a single word, a bomb in the key of F. 

I have said on many an occasion that several of my life’s top ten moments have come in the audience as the Dead searched, explored, jammed, shared, led, and pointed to places we might go and experience together. Sometimes those places required patience, sometimes the face value of the groove was enough, but there was always the sheer joy of the artist becoming one with the audience that truly captured my open and yearning soul. 

The last time I saw the Dead was 1993 at Seattle’s Memorial Coliseum. The three times before that were down in Eugene at Autzen Stadium. By that time I had evolved into a happy shiny fanboy just moving unabashedly to the wall of sound. It was an easy script to follow, dance for set one, go pee and hang for twenty, dance for set two and encore. Peace, freedom, joy, a complete release from the petty issues of the day. It was always like being liberated, with doors opening and possibilities, potentials and dreams right around the corner, waiting to meet up in tie-dye togetherness. 

It's a two hour drive over, not including ferry ride, and the best I can determine is that the parking opens two hours before the 7pm start. I’ll go early, take the GoPro and my fixie, cruise and grab some b-roll footage. There will be a full Strawberry moonrise around 10 and weather calls for sunny and 81. The only down side is that I could’t find a sub for my Saturday spin class, so I need to be on the 0600 boat the next morning. Game plan is to exit venue late Friday night and catch some nappy Zs in one of the two rest areas en route home. 

Cowboy Neal will be at the wheel. And those 25 years will seem like a dream. A broken angel sings from a guitar. Gimme five I’m still alive. 

Incredibly Flipping Stupid

Yesterday was brutal. Yesterday was brilliant. Yesterday was as beautiful as it was banal.

With fresh DOMS fatigue we drove the 90 minutes to the temporary base camp parking area, added what looked like at the time to be sufficient clothing, and headed out to explore a new route to the top of Hurricane Ridge. The DOT is paving the first five miles, considered by many to be the most demanding, from the Interpretive Center to the Ranger Station gate. We had advance intel that a parallel road was an option with the caveat that there would be an off-road crossing section connecting the two just before the gate. Good enough for me, so off we rode up the always challenging 17 miles to the 5,214 ft summit. 

Almost immediately the trail started to climb, topping out at 12%, that was the bad news, the really bad news was that the cloudless blue skies were disappearing quickly with chilly winds pushing gray, sooty looking clouds, clouds with heavy black bottoms suggesting, or warning perhaps, of rainfall not far off. 

The short connecting path, which began at the terminus of the pavement ended up being about a mile, over downed maple trees, around  boulders, into and out of muddy pools of dense vegetation, mostly moss. By the time we reached the main road, a good deal of work and plenty of precious energy reserves had already been spent. It was going to be a relentless slugfest for the next 12 miles. At least I brought arm warmers. 

The secret to climbing for me is in the one-two cha-cha of cadence and rhythm. I am at my best (not saying much) when the speed of my pedal rotations matches some internal time mechanism, controlled by the drum machine in my soul. I hear sweet music when these two are practicing a melodic and percussive duet. Luckily for me, that duet is not always drum and fife, or the classic drum-bass backbone so familiar to us. The mountain, the sky, the deep leg fatigue of Jose Uno and Jose Dos, lotsa deer on the road, vacationing families from Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania and Idaho, my fingers starting to cramp, the sun in hide and seek mode and the balletic arcs of the crows overhead, called for more subtle a score. Something ethereal and adventurous. Something to goad me up this hill with grinding sweat, gumption and gratitude. 

I ride without data. Not even the most basic of measuring tools, no heart-rate, cadence or MPH. Don’t need ‘em and don’t want ‘em. My philosophy for twenty years has been to train with data and power, and to race and ride by feel. It is amazing how, with time, practice and awareness, one can match metrics with the organic muscle memory used by millions of successful athletes before the introduction of such common names as Strava, Garmin, Polar, and hundreds of others all giving you real time information on everything from tire pressure to win direction. OK fine. I can pinch and listen for that data thank you very much, I want to enjoy this moment and analyze my physiological reaction as the music keeps me in a groove no on-board monitoring device could ever measure. 

A three-hour climb will put you in the front row of THAT concert, guaranteed. 

We get to the top and the driving denizens who just minutes before were speeding past us in Volts, Westies, Diesel Winnebagos and Harleys are now in the parking lot of the lodge all dressed like models from REI. It is cold, the wind is howling, a light drizzle adds to the chill of the reality that we are under dressed. The ride back down, with 40 mile an hour headwinds biting your ears is just a cup of coffee away. 

I have done this descent before under similar conditions and thought my face was going to freeze. Riding down a mountain road, with opposing traffic oblivious to your compromised handling capabilities, at a high rate of speed with foggy goggles and numb hands, is either wonderfully and orgasmicly exhilarating or incredibly flipping stupid. 

Most likely to the dismay of 50% of the audience, I have yet to make up my mind which it is. 

I’ll keep trying and maybe next time I’ll have the definitive answer for ya. 

Five Months Away

 It is hard to be happy. It takes effort. It requires constant vigilance coupled with the learned ability to transcend the mundane. While relentlessly bombarded by powerful images of fear, and therefore your need to respond, it takes a special type of courage to withstand the negative, flow past the neutral and stay positive. 

I will tell you this, today I, again, am deeply ashamed of what we have become. The news that the SCOTUS rules in favor of Trump’s travel ban just ruined my morning, equally I am quite sure as it made Mueller’s, Bannon’s, Pence’s and Sander’s. Fox news must be jumping up and down ‘celebrating’ this landmark decision, one swayed by the strongarm tactics of a completely corrupt and morally bankrupt administration. They don’t even hide it anymore, pandering to a racist base intent solely upon keeping their white entitlements intact. 

We should be afraid that they are so afraid. Because this is insane. Today we are no better than third world countries that rule by fear, violence and fascist ideologies. Fact is, because of the standards we have championed for over two hundred years, and that we know better, and have the gall to call ourselves Christians, this is, as we used to say in the contracting world, totally unsat. One hundred percent unsatisfactory. 

And it has to stop. It simply must end. SOMEBODY HAS TO DO SOMETHING. 

That somebody must be me and you. And the rest of us who see the potential, OUR RESPONSIBILITY, for global leadership, cooperation and the brokerage of peace. All of that begins here, at home, with each of us taking responsibility, moving ceaselessly towards the ideal that our founding fathers compiled into an incredibly succinct document known as the Constitution of the United States of America.

That document is currently under siege, held hostage by thieves, pirates and the greedy power lust of a handful of ghouls more interested in amassing money and power than protecting our guarantees to life, liberty and the pursuit. Their profit comes from our tiny middle class pockets and that power we give to them in the form of our collective voting process, aka democracy.

Cut to the chase. Hear, embrace and shout: NOVEMBER. Five months away. 

I pray that won’t be too late. 

Then There Is

After the early class, another grande cuppa joe and a quick kit change, I was back on the Honda riding in the drizzle. I am putting the final pieces together on the class profile and somehow the ancient Zen adage pops into my mind as vivid as Kilimanjaro or Fuji. 

First there is a mountain,
Then there is no mountain.
Then there is. 

Once upon a time I used that cosmology as the basis for an entire quarter as metaphor for our approach to indoor cycling. To me, my interpretation has always been simple:

You see the challenge as impossible,

You take ONE STEP towards it,

And the journey begins. 

Or,

You see challenge, hardship an insurmountable goal as unobtainable,

Something changes your bias and you reconsider,

You make the courageous decision to act.

Or,

I could never do that,

I tried,

I did. 

Or,

First there is fear,

Fear is faced,

Another fear takes its place.

Or,

First there is doubt, trauma and bad luck,

They change when accepted as ‘life’

Then there is less doubt, more flow and good karma.

I am smiling in the saddle as I crest a hill, happy to have rhetorically juxtaposed something classically timeless into a theme for the class. There are so many interpretations to this, one could riff on its beautiful theme for an hour, so I celebrate the tiny artistic victory by taking both hands off the handlebars and clapping like an Italian football fan, ala tifosi. I must have looked like a loon. Who claps with happiness in the rain?

Over the hill on the back side descent a cobalt SUV passes at the precise moment that I spot a patrol car hiding in the bushes of a driveway opposite. Instantly I regrip the handles and look at the speedometer, which I cannot read because of raindrops. I see the officer pull from his cover and turn in my direction, lights on.

First there is a mountain. 

Number Nine

 (Almost) everyone has, in the backyard of their cycling community, a hill that dominates discussions based upon degree of difficulty. In reverential terns we speak of Maui’s Haleakala, New Hampshire’s Mt Washington, Santa Barbara’s Gibraltar, Diablo, Lemmon, Staircase and Yellow Lake as if they were connected to the Alps, Pyrenees or Dolomites. Maybe because, outside of the effort required to climb them on a bicycle, or in global positioning, they are connected. These massive monuments of marble beacon cyclists with the same sensual come-on’s as climbers. We use wheels they rope. The respect is reciprocal. We ride them because they are there, or here as in this case. 

Of of our Island’s many hills, the one with arguably the greatest degree of notoriety, is Baker Hill. Intimidating to some, it represents one of the many sparkling gems in the Chilly Hilly crown, a once a year, season opening 33 mile ride sponsored by the Cascade Bicycle Club. It is in it’s 46th year. Today we did hill repeats up, over and back. They are not impossible, do not require a SAG vehicle or blood doping and offer the luxury of two screaming descents for recovery. A lap (out AND back) takes between 11 and 20 minutes. Last year we did 10. This year a dozen. In 3:25, which averages out to a hair over 17 minutes round trip. Just another day at the office for the Cat Oners. Hard work for me today.

One of our stronger riders, who in reaching his time limit had to pull off and get home, waited for me at the crest of the last steep section. He wanted to say ciao and give me the last of his (black cherry) Shot Blocks. As I didn’t want to stop too long to avoid cramping, he laughingly asked me what lap we were on. I replied 8, to which he commented that it is sooooo hard to keep track. Ha, I use the Husky football/Yankee baseball method for that. I could tell from his look that I had opened a Pandora’s Box of intrigue. He was thinking hard as I used every bit of patience not to blurt out my system of keeping in the moment by fixing a current or former Husky footballer’s name with a retired Yankee’s. I had some great fun on the prior laps, riding with the inspiration of Austin Gehrig, Shaq Mantle and Napoleon Berra, so when asked about the current lap, he said, and I laughed out loud so hard a shot block turned to snot rocket, so this is, lemme guess, Myles Maris.

It is. 

Bow-Wow Now

It can be painfully slow.

As we say, use a calendar not a stopwatch. 

I have the wonderful honor of dog sitting this week for the owners of a Shiba Inu. Like any walker of dogs, you get to know their personalities rather quickly. She has her quirks, some in stark contrast with the usual band of labs that I oversee on a regular basis, with one characteristic standing out from the common most. 

It seems to me, that she has mastered the art of the here and now, with an uncanny ability (again admitting the possibility of ‘projecting’ ) to so focus and be in the moment that what would normally be a twenty minute out and back exercise trot with one of the Labs, takes us, well, as long as it takes us. Because she stops, pulls back on the leash, and thoroughly inspects whatever happens to share the same spatio-temporal GPS with us. With so much attention to whatever is there, that we sometimes take less than ten steps in ten minutes. Because there is a lot there don’t ya know. 

So I play along. 

This morning she considered a ripe blackberry and I downshifted into walking meditation mode in order to accommodate. Time passed and the flow continued as a caterpillar started its road-crossing quest. I could almost hear her attention scream ‘OMG a caterpillar, would you look at this?’. 

So I looked. 

And in looking found more. Lots more than my ‘hardened by society’ concept of hyper-swift assessments at a thousand miles an hour, in real time, managing stresses, options and responsibilities with cell phone in overdrive and blood pressure rising. There is a message here I finally understood. Decode. Decipher. Download. 

Stop, slow down, smell the blackberries and admire the soon to be butterflies. 

Sure there are a hundred items on my to-do list this weekend, but hurrying thru them, denying each its proper place, detailed attention and relaxed focus creates nothing but more items on that list. Fix what you fixed. Then fix it again and blame it on bad engineering or Taiwanese nails. 

We have talked about this in other posts, most notably as it relates to motorcycle maintenance, creative writing, music, spinning, swimming, cleaning, cooking and bike racing. In order to succeed they each require practice, focus and execution. Prepare, engage, flow. I am so reminded of this overtime I ride. I did five indoor 2x20 sessions this week as well as three HIT sets. Each one has a specific demand, but the steady-state, sub-threshold rides in the PowerBarn always seem to ask for just a little more, something extra, from the combination of head, heart, lung, leg and the often missing component of soul, in other words, the complete package. Everything. Not as in all-out, everything you got, but as in stay present, engage with your discomfort, look for efficiency, breathe, relax and find the flow type of everything.

Or what my teacher today on the other end of the leash might call The Now. 

Doesn't Matter

Doesn’t matter.

Yesterday’s essay on two people that I admire, Jerry Garcia and Bruce Lee, created a maelstrom of debate when I verbally opened up the topic for discussion after our evening 2x20 session in the PowerBarn. Naturally, I suspect, because attempts such as these invariably become debates on who is ‘the greatest’, ‘the best’ or the one with most accumulated notoriety. 

That was never my point. The disclaimer being that the initial piece was outlined as back-story to bring a philosophical action point into the running narrative that beats at the heart of this arrhythmic blog. Those two prolific artists combined their unique talents to sent millions of important messages into the stratosphere of global consciousness, attempting to push humanities collective curiosity upward, and I, innocently, intercepted one memo with a simultaneous internal explosion of the miraculous, the magical and the mysterious. I was, to keep the alliteration metaphorical, moved. 

Moved by the power Garcia held in his heart and the beauty Lee combined with his graceful movements. That one-two punch can be visualized by using any Garcia solo (I’ll take The Wheel)  over Lee spinning, leaping, kicking in total control of his every lean muscle. This was the impact on my soul as I heard the arpeggio of truth while practicing the dynamic beauty of focused, relaxed movement. This in a tropical paradise under the shimmering light of a summer’s full moon. 

Just one in a series of special events that orchestrated and sculpted, literally, the person I have become. That moment and those guys played a part in the shaping of my character for which I will always be grateful, proud even. It was such a beautiful moment in time that to do anything other than share it, would place my responsibilities, what Millman and his Peaceful Warriors call ‘house rules’, in the category of the totally unacceptable. It would be like many of today’s politicians who KNOW better, but DO nothing. Garcia and Lee were two examples of artists having both the knowledge in music, martial arts, philosophy, sociology and poetry combined with the wisdom in the ways and means to share it with the world.

For that I feel like I should return their grand gesture with a gentle note of appreciation. That was the story, paying it forward. 

Not whether Clapton played quicker scales (he could) or who would be the last man standing if Norris went into the ring of fire with Bruce (he did). They have their own (and awesome) stories. They are extremely gifted as well and each have made substantial contributions to our culture and consciousness. Think of the combinations that have moved you. Think thunder and lightning. 

Not the best, the most popular or the all-time leader. But the ones who made a difference, who somehow caught the attention of your spirit and planted a seed there. Anything else…..

.....doesn’t really matter anyway. 

Thank You

“What we’re thinking about is a peaceful planet. We’re not thinking about anything else. We’re not thinking about any kind of power. We’re not thinking about any kind of struggles. We’re not thinking about revolution or war or any of that. That’s not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life, a simple life, a good life, and think about moving the whole human race ahead a step, or a few steps.”  Jerry Garcia.

“Movement without philosophy is mechanical. Movement with philosophy is art.”  Bruce Lee.

A pair of juicy quotes (nothing worse than a juicelees pear) from two of my favorites to open our exchange today. I offer a time/place story as a way of connecting the cosmic dots that bind us all in this delightful dance. 

In 1995 I was working on a remote and isolated military base in the Indian Ocean. I was a contracted civilian tasked with managing the Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) operations that provided fitness, recreation, leisure and a myriad of wholesome activities to the service men and women stationed on the island as well as the 1,500 contractor personnel working under the base operating support contract. It was a pivotal time in my life asking a leap of faith for a lifelong consciouses objector and freelance peacenik to serve in a military environment, but I embraced the dichotomy as best I could and put the needs of the individual ahead of the geo-political reason for our presence in the hot zone. 

One of the programs under my management was our group specialty training classes, usually staged at night in the base gym. I quickly signed up for our martial arts program, specifically Taekwondo, quickly seeing it as a opportunity to advance my relentless quest to sync mind, body and spirit. 

At the time of this full immersion into the world of martial arts and my outside research of its history, tradition and its demand on the sincere practitioner, I began studying the published works of the discipline’s more popular ‘celebrities’, that path, of course, leading me down the road to the doorstep of Bruce Lee. 

After one balmy night of practice on the beach, fighting forms under a tropical full moon, I walked in meditation back to my quarters, about twenty steps from a beach that makes Waikiki seem bland, I showered and prepared a dinner of rice and vegetables. I switched on the TV to our only station and heard the news.

Jerry Garcia had died. 

Awakened from my stunned state by the boiling rice, I sat in silence and felt my heart and soul mourn. It was as if somebody had just told me that Mom or Dad had died. I was absolutely numb. 

Slowly thoughts began to float into my consciousness, memories of the hundreds of Dead shows I had witnessed over the years, the magic of the music and the mystery of the man. I felt very alone way out there in the middle of the ocean, seven degrees south of the Equator, helpless. 

I sat very still for a long while letting my emotions play out, breathing deep in the attempt to calm the voice wanting to scream a response. 

And I saw myself on the beach practicing an art form under the vivid glow of a moon few people would ever witness, and I heard the unique tone of Garcia’s guitar and the sincerity of his voice sing a tune to me that would forever power the magic in my soul. 

Moving the human race forward a single step is that philosophy dancing into art. 

Thank you Jerry and thank you Bruce. 

Blue Wave

It beats you up. The relentless barrage of news coverage with graphic representation of man’s apparent endless supply of inhumanity towards his fellow man. The Draconian notion that somehow one demographic is superior to all the rest, that supremacy is handed down through DNA to one group having fairer skin tones than the others. Sadly, this is nothing new. Since the dawn of man we have decided that territorial boundaries are worthy of fighting for. Geo-political squabbles have been in non-stop play since we first discovered the striking power of sticks and stones. 

Yes, we have come a long way, eschewing the wood and granite for contemporary weapons of destruction like chemicals, computers and tomahawk missiles. Yet it is still man vs man. You are different therefore you will need controlling. 

I bring this up today not so much because it needs additional commentary but because I seek an alternative coping strategy. I truly feel that silence is complicity. If I Zen out at the top of a mountain far from the battles raging on our soil, I am running from my responsibility. In their complex narrative, The Cultural Creatives, Rey and Anderson suggest that we, my generation, The Boomers, have done exactly that, run from responsibility, mostly because we were/are so deeply opposed to the body politic of corruption. So we dropped out, again. We ushered in a new era, stopped an atrocity of a war, removed a president of crimes so heinous he resigned from office, started solar power, recycling, green-earth protecting programs, shared with each other and wanted nothing more than three days of peace, love and music, knowing that if we could pull THAT off, the future would indeed be bright. 

It was’t. It became dark as hell and gets darker by the day. 

So I am here to speak up because I am no use to anyone if I refuse to call attention to the evil that grows around us like juiced-up bacteria. I will not sit idly by and watch the greedy corruption that is today’s Republican Party destroy both our values and our dignities, to say nothing of our health, happiness and spiritual growth. 

It is imperative that we find a way to reel in those creatives who once chose the alternative, apolitical route as a counter-cultural tactic. We need you. I understand your evolution. I did the same thing. 

One morning I woke up hungry, tired and poor. I decided I probably should correct that situation by getting a real job so I could eat and sleep. Once I learned how to play the game - the more value I brought to the table the more I could buy - that became the new game, no longer just trusting in the cosmos to multiply loaves and fishes for my benefit. Then a funny thing happened. I began to see everyone NOT taking that road as lost. My new map was rapidly moving from left to right. I was more interested in making money than making music. If I could contribute to my self, my family and my community why did I need to get political about it? 

One word: Empathy.

Without it we are back in the stone age fighting for a share of the carcass. If we cannot muster the humanity to see our neighbors, and this has nothing to do with geography, as ourselves, worthy of respect, assistance and support, we have decided that the world stops here. I have mine, you get yours, and beware the man who looks, thinks, prays or acts in differentiation. The current administration is completely devoid of empathy. And these are your leaders. 

Come back cultural creatives, this is an SOS. We are all in this boat together, regardless that the captain is bellowing otherwise. 

That wave gathering momentum on a collision course with our little dinghy needs to be blue. 

VOTE

I am not sure which hurts the most. 

What we are, or what we have become. 

We have always been a nation led by deceitful politicians justifying criminal intention by appealing to a fearful, ignorant, racist and angry population. We cut our teeth on genocide and aggression. We stack the deck for corporations, up to and including calling them ‘people’ to further wedge their advantage. We discriminate, bully, target, profile and hate. Anyone with the slightest difference is not to be trusted with the guaranteed rights of life and liberty, and only athletes and entertainers are granted the pursuit of happiness, with certain exceptions and understandings, of course. In short, as I mentioned in conversation several times over the weekend, WE SUCK. 

We suck on the humanitarian level, the religious level, the democratic level, the judicial level, the constitutional level. The only thing level about us is our inability to level the playing field. Worse, those corporations hiding tax free profits in off-shore accounts are laughing hysterically at us as we fight amongst each other as they relentlessly chip away at everything from clean water to voting suppression. To think we are free shines a delusional light, cast from the gas-lamps of the radical right, on the paradox of freedom's fragile oxymoron.  To think we are just and fair is an Orwellian farce. To consider us moral and forthright is a sick joke not even Carlin would appreciate. Did I say it already? WE SUCK.

Every republican senator and every house red-tied congressman (with matching lapel pin) is complicit in the latest round of atrocious crimes against humanity. Guilt by muting the reality of their lack of fortitude like invertebrates swimming against the current of morality. Guilty as fuck for the crime of lining their slimy pockets with the silver of our trust. Why people buy this is a mystery to me. 

Sadly, the latest round of their joint collusion against the values that we call america (I can’t capitalize it anymore) is the inhumane and mean-spirited incarceration of the kids to the south. No law, no bible quote and no reason for this other than hate, greed and fear has promoted this felonious power-play.

In my heart I know there is no justification and in my soul I reel at the overt propaganda claiming that these kids are somehow the enemy. If you are still here, please allow me the redundancy of a WE SUCK opinion, with the addendum that the kids aren't the enemy, we are.

We suck because we have created this mess. Our fear and our anger and our hatred have all conspired to mash-up an evil concoction, hawked daily by an immensely talented snake oil salesman and a team of thoroughly corrupt bag men. 

One can turn to the propaganda network and hear the spin against the outrage, a profitable tactic, that further enables the fear and bigotry, around the clock, as the fascist machinery rumbles into soft minds and over weak souls. WE SUCK. 

Lastly today please allow me to sociologically suggest that the very same kids we are treating worse than animals today, have a very high probability of becoming the terrorists of tomorrow.

I know I would be a little angry at the people responsible. How else to hold them accountable?

VOTE. 

Right Now

I tried a new spin on an old theme today. Or, I suppose one could say an old spin on a new theme. Whichever way rings truer to thine own ear, so let it duly sound. 

This is the premise: Time, regardless of how it is passing, is only urgent in the now. The location of that passing is known as here. To use that time most effectively, one’s focused energies must be in the moment of passing, at the space where it passes. When this is accomplished (and it takes lots of practice) our attentions create flowing, dynamic energy, which in turn, powers us up and through yet another plane, that of time and space. Here to there. Moment by moment. Each breath another golden opportunity to practice our commitment to the living dynamic of awareness in motion. 

WE KNOW AND DO ALL THAT RIGHT?

While ‘yes, of course’ is the obvious answer, you know as well as I how hard it can sometimes be. There are as many distractions to our fragile and easily manipulated egos as there are excuses for looking backward at failure, hurt, weakness and pain. Conversely, the more aggressive of us grit our teeth in a relentless and vigilant struggle into the seemingly positive arena of the modern hero. I will achieve my goals even if it kills me approach. 

All this as intro into the practice of time and space, here and now, embrace the whatever spin class. The latter part of that run-on detail basically means that if (IF) our attention is on the here, IF our focus on the now, IF our understanding of time reveals energy flowing where our focus is going, this space will open up the choice of the how. e.g. I WILL GIVE YOU THE WHAT, YOUR RESPONSE IS THE HOW. That is your whatever. It can rock or it can be a hard place. 

You can embrace the opportunity adding all the components and suggested tactics, or simply, not. That is our practice. We will do it, and do it again, each time counter balancing our human tendencies to dwell on the past while simultaneously looking to the future with our attempts to remember what the heck we were supposed to be doing during this current exercise in futility. There is humility in futility, like counting breaths. WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?

Today, in observance of the time/place theme, we used 18 as the quantifier. We did an 18 second sprint, recover, a minute standing at 18 and a minute seated at 18. Second, day, year. Time: Here, Place: Now. It was a success in the present tense, maybe even gnarlier in the past. 

It pleases me to know that we can find utility in our spin class dodo, The House of Mirth, to practice something so valuable. Lord knows we are faced with myriad challenges on local as well as global stages. Seems to me that if we can find a way to improve, refine, sensitize and strengthen our abilities to stay centered, powered, focused and alive, it will go a long way towards severing us when most needed. 

Like right here and right now. 

Further

The photo grabbed me by the soul the minute we walked in. It was the last evening we would celebrate together after three days of riding, dinning and hi-fiving. The annual epic trek to Bend, Oregon, Sunriver actually is base camp, was almost at an end as we entered the Worthy BrewPub for an encore celebration. 

I waltz in to see a poster of Further, the legendary bus commissioned by Ken Kesey and piloted by Cowboy Neal, commanding attention at the entrance. I knew (without looking) that we were in for a wild ride. 

My dinner choice came down to two items, a local ingredient pizza with pesto and mushrooms and a veggie sandwich going by the juicy moniker of Box of Rain Vegetarian Delight. 

Phil Lesh and Bob Hunter won that round with the review I can only label De-Lesh. 

So we’re back. Eight long road hours later I sit uploading video for the next episode which I promised in two weeks. These puppies used to take a year and cost a condo (actual fact), now I can crank them about as fast as a day-glow painted 1939 International reeling' down Mt Bachelor. 

Big thanks to all the PowerBarners for their camaraderie, attitude, energy and friendship. This is a team like no other and I am proud to be a part, to play a small role in the epicness and adventure. 

Till next year: Cheers!

Today I Rode My Bike

There are a lot of things one can do.

One can do good things, or one can do bad things.

One can do things to help people, or to hurt them.

One can promote or one can demote.

One can love or one can not love.

One can be full of fear, or one can be full of joy.

One can be consumed with one, or by many.

One can heal or one can hurt.

One can tell truths, as well as untruths.

One can be responsible, or one can blame.

Today I rode my bike.

Long Live the Streak

At the base of Central Oregon's majestic Mt Bachelor we stopped for a group shot for the GCN network. Even without audio the picture says a thousand words. Which is a good thing because of the 60 miles around this picturesque high desert paradise, I rode bleeding from the eyeballs with a monster red wine hangover. Hence the breaking of the streak. The streak is dead (consecutive days of blogging).

Out for one more ride today, a 50 miler out to Lake Paulina and back.

My dear friends, if you ride, on or off-road, paddle, hike, run, camp, float, tube, shoot photography, enjoy good beer (and wine), like clean air and blue skies, the Bend and surrounding communities are a must.

Long live the Streak.

Mt Bachelor

The streak continues despite hardship, headache and 55 miles of tarmac.

We are in Sunriver, Oregon, a few punts South of Bend, for our annual cycling extravaganza, Today was ride one, the aforementioned 55 miler, on sometimes decent, sometimes perfect roads to south of, and in the shadow of the majestic Mt Bachelor. We split into two groups, four heading off-road and six opting for the more civilized conditions of the road. We will be joined tonight by the last two members of this year's group for a grand fest and then the big Cascade Lakes ride tomorrow, a scheduled 90 miler around the grand dame of the Deschutes.

Out five bedroom chalet is perfect for this type of recreational activity, big garage, kitchen, decks and a hot tub. Who cares about anything else?

As we ripped through the countryside on our way home, the peloton pushing 20 mph into  mild headwind, I was thinking about how cool it is to be doing all this fun stuff. We train through the dark, cool and wet winters to come out the back side of spring and take it to the streets, happy, healthy and high on a mixture of endorphins and the sensual scents of the forest.

We'll do it again tomorrow. Camera's to download and batteries to charge. Penne to sample and IPAs quaff. Cheers!

Off to Bend

We are off for a four day jaunt to Bend, Oregon. Three days of riding on smooth, peaceful and scenic roads. Under (hopefully) sunny skies. Photo at right if from the USAT National Duathlon Championship in 2016. I would post pix of our spectacular rides form last year but there are chores to do before the tight 0900 departure time. So we’re outta the local drizzle, steamrolling towards the high desert plateau and the soul cleansing challenge of the road. Adios for now. 

Good Choice

There are times when I look back upon key decisions I’ve made and wish I could buy a re-do. With several of them I would pay handsomely for a second chance. When I heard a missive credited to Maya Angelou yesterday, it soothed, somewhat, a few of my rear-view mirror embarrassments, up to and possibly including, even a humiliating one or two. She says:

What I did then I did with the best intel I had. Now that I know better, I do better.

That is such a wonderful point of view. Certainly we must assume responsibility for our actions, especially the ones that fall under the ‘errors of omission’ or ‘what was I thinking’ categories. Personally, most of these case files reveal that it was plainly obvious that what I was thinking at the time of action was painfully little, clouded by alcohol, drugs, youth, immaturity, runaway hormones or mis-directed attempts at humor, or some combination of all of the above. I do a little better these days.

I bring this up today because the essay on one of the major turning points in my life (so far) was the one I re-told a few days ago under the title Go Huskies. Certainly there has been other decisions, up to or equalling that pivotal one, in other perhaps more important areas, but I always default to that moment as one that shaped the future for me more than any others. I guess it revealing that it is a love instance and not a money, fame or disaster moment of truth. 

Almost immediately after writing the post I started to consider whether or not I had done it justice. After all, one of the basic drills central to all this ‘open your heart and bare your soul to the world’ ritualistic daily effort of creative writing, is to both become better at telling stories, and then dissecting them for accuracy, content, meaning, consequence, truth, beauty and result. If any.

It was during the latter phase of retro analysis, editing, that I started to address the consequence issue. More precisely, of those decisions I’ve made considered in the top five of lifetime relative importance, how many had lasting positive value? ANY?

Rephrasing the question I look closer, how has that decision affected everything that has come after it? Or, the more common question, given the chance would I change it? 

Remembering, re-reading and re-considering all this as it relates to that singular circumstance, I can honestly say that I would do it again, in the same way, giving the same response. 

Which makes it a touch more understandable, or at least forgivable, when I feel so non-plussed at the recent success of the Washington Capitols, the Golden State Warriors or that horse that won the Triple Crown. 

The University of Washington Husky baseball team, however, is in the College World Series for the first time in their 100 year history. 

I made the right choice and I’m sticking with it. Looking back, thanks Julie. 

Today I Choose

After yesterday’s confessional, a pivotal life-changing event, today we race intrepidly into the frightening arena of the first person, active voice narrative. It always amazes me (I am easily amazed these days) how difficult it is to speak from this perspective, as compared to simply re-telling events that have already occurred. 

This being Monday morning I seems like as good a place as any to start, re-start or kick-start the challenging search for the present tense, known in some circles as the literary here & now.

My lower back is telling me to resume this daily ritual in the standing position. Instinctively I arch from the lumbar and lean backward away from the computer screen. This feels a little better but I know I must return to some form of stretching, yoga or the practice I employed when in heavy and serious Ironman training, known formally as the floor routine. Deep and flowing stretch. 

I remain disturbed by current events from the global stage. As you know, or should know, I am not a fan of the current administration and their nefarious propensities to control, manipulate and persecute. Today the POTUS (as close as I can come to actually saying it) is in Singapore to meet with another strongman dictator who is a leading contributor to world suffering and has a anti-humanitarian rap sheet longer than the coastline of his Asian peninsula. Imagine my gall this morning when the headlines proclaim that human rights violations will not be discussed in their ‘historic’ meeting. Oh excuse me, their summit. 

THEN WHY MEET? WHAT ELSE IS THERE? Oh yes, war and money, right I almost forgot. More geographical-political ‘understanding’. Robert DeNiro nails it far better than I. 

I again address the absolute evil behind the .gov incarceration of, and subsequent separation of, undocumented mothers and their brown-skinned babies, as first done in Saturday’s daily diatribe, ending with my comments on other’s comments from a local news outlet’s twitter page. I still cannot fathom how someone could have the dullness of soul to insist that this crime could be justified by an ‘it’s the law’ response. Really? Excuse me Mr Evangelical hypocrite but wouldn’t ‘thou shalt not kill’ fit into that same category? The law of man should be secondary, a sub-set, of terms and conditions of the law of your God, no?

MERCY BESTS JUDGMENT. That means that compassion is better than your tribe’s interpretation of what is right or wrong. Saying that it is the law and blindly leaving discussion and contemplation to others (who you put in office to act as proxy for your racism and bigotry), is a chickenshit, cowardly and fearful attempt to assign blame elsewhere. 

I want to stand for my beliefs. On two legs and in the light of truth and justice. With a sign reading, until I can come up with something more urgent, ‘we are better than this.’

Yet the sad reality is that we aren’t. This is who we are. We suck. To allow these atrocities to continue, under the corrupt and implicit gaze of a senate and legislature unwilling to trade their bigoted base and lobby bribes for basic decency, is exactly who we are. We suck. 

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. 

My first person, active voice today, this fine Monday as I prep for my first spin class of the week, is screaming at me to do something about it. 

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, I hear it shout, ABOUT IT? 

It has now been over four hours since I, despite my weak attempt at separation of exercise and elocution, offered the same question to my class as we compared the difference between effort and result, between continual improvement and perfection, and between mercy and judgment. 

Stand up, speak up, show up. Speak your truth. Lead by example. Do what is right. 

There is criminal injustice happening right now to babies whose only crime is coming into this world with our government’s idea of the wrong color of skin. 

Somebody has to call the cops. This must stop. 

The only way we can make America great again is by voting. 

First person and active. Today I choose. 

Go Huskies

I have told this story many times. Always, perhaps, subliminally making the case for accessing, and thusly increasing, my depth of emotional acumen. Here is how it unveiled almost thirty years ago. 

It is early evening at a swanky French restaurant across the street from our offices in Seattle’s lower Queen Anne district. I am dining with a young girl with beautiful copper-colored hair, sparkling green eyes and a sophisticated and effervescent personality. To say that I was in love would understate the impact this person had already had on my life in the six months we had been dating. 

Having grown up with sports, played baseball at a very high level in the hotbed of Southern California,  it was no seventh-inning stretch that I was Marketing Manager and Circulation Director for a sports magazine publisher. I loved the job, working with our national distributor, the network of wholesalers and retailers, the media, the plethora of writers, photogs and having access to every ballpark, stadium or arena in the world. Hog heaven for a sports junkie.

As we sat and dined, conversation drifted in, out and around my experiences in that world and hers as a classical pianist, ballerina, linguist and world traveler. I was learning about French food, the language and the secrets of Provence as we ate, drank and laughed. 

When it was my turn to push the conversation I started in with another cliched tale of the ballplayer who first introduced me to chewing tobacco, the only continuity thread being that his nickname was Frenchy. She put up a hand like a traffic officer holding it there so I felt compelled to place mine into hers. As she gently intersected her fingers with mine and looked deep into my eyes with her dazzling emeralds I felt a moment of truth was about to magically unfold.

And she said, ‘you know, you are rather one demential’. 

Blink. Head shake. Arrhythmia. 

‘Well, yeah, I guess, but…’

‘All you talk about is sports’.

‘Yeah, but….’

‘No music, art, literature, culture, philosophy…..’

‘It is my job, that is what I do’.

As our hands separated and returned to their respective corners of the ring, it felt what I interrupted to be an impeding doom. Quick - quote some Shakespeare I remember thinking. 

’Tell you what we’ll do’, she continues, thankfully in English, ‘if you would like our relationship to continue, I think your personal character and experience would exponentially increase if you were to spend more time at the theatre, in museums, at the library and in places other than dugouts, locker rooms and press boxes’.

I am flabbergasted, eyes opening wider than the Mississippi at high tide. Speechless, I sip the expensive wine. 

‘Therefore, should you decide to participate, you can keep one of the teams you follow so closely and trade all the rest for our little experiment in growth, change, culture and romance. One team’. 

‘One?’

‘One’.

‘OK, I’ll give it some thought, when do I need to respond?’

’Now’.

’Now?’

’Now’.

In a somewhat comical side note, there was a couple sitting at the table next to us who had been obviously eavesdropping the entire conversation. As I took a deep breath with consideration equally deep, I turned my head wiping my mouth with the linen napkin. The guy at the table was staring at me apparently caught up in the decision drama unfolding in real time. He gave me a subtle shake of head indicating the classic ‘don’t do it dude’.

I excused myself to go to the men's room. Where I tossed handfuls of cold water in my face attempting to flush out the correct response to her outrageous proposition then gazed blankly into the mirror hoping to find salvation in the reflection. 

I walk back to the table adjusting the windsor knot in my silk tie and remembering that she had recently given it to me as a birthday gift. 

I sit. She is radiantly watching as is the guy next to us. As is the waiter. 

I take another sip of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape, suddenly aware of its delicate and robust finish. 

‘Go Huskies’.