'Sailing Alone Around the World'

Round Ponders listen up...On Christmas Eve, Jim one of many of my favorite customers at Andronico's where I work gave me a Christmas Present .. too my surprise, a Book called 'Sailing Alone Around The World' first published in 1900. 'one of the most readable books in the whole library of adventure' says Sports Illustrated. Fantastic read, a 36 foot sloop and Captain Joshua Slocum in his 50's, sets out in 1896 to just do it. That Christmas Evening I am reading .......

  'The wind freshened, and 'the Spray' rounded Deer Island light, going at the rate of 7 knots. Passing it she squared away direct for Gloucester, where she was to procure some fisherman's stores. Waves dancing joyously across Massachusetts Bay met the sloop coming out, to dash themselves instantly
into myriads of sparkling gems that hung about her breast at every surge. The day was perfect, the sunlight clear and strong. Every particle of water thrown into the air became a gem, and The Spray, making good her name as she dashed ahead, snatched necklace after necklace from the sea, and as often threw them away. We have all seen miniature rainbows about a ship's prow, but 'The Spray' flung out a bow of her own that day, such as I had never seen before. Her good angel had embarked on the voyage; I so read it in the sea.'

 It's been a long time since I have been in a sailboat, but the images of necklaces from the Sea. I can remember being mesmerized or at least marveled by the way a boat can toss up this endless chains of drops, necklaces indeed.

 'Being thus refitted I was once more ready for the sea, and on May 7 again made sail. The weather was mild  on the day of my departure from Gloucester. On the point ahead, as the Spray stood out of the cove, was a lively picture, for the front of a tall factory was a flutter of  handkerchiefs and caps. Pretty faces peered out of the windows from the top to the bottom of the building, all smiling bon voyage. Some hailed me to know where away and why alone. Why? .....'

 ...' I lay down, for the first time at sea alone, not to sleep but to doze and to dream.
    I had read somewhere of a fishing schooner hooking her anchor into a whale, and being towed a long way and at great speed. This is exactly what happened to the Spray --- in my dream! I could not shake it entirely when I awoke and found that it was the wind blowing and the heavy sea now running that had disturbed my short rest. A storm was brewing; indeed, it was already stormy. I reefed the sails, then hauled in my sea-anchor, and setting what canvas the sloop could carry, headed her way for Monhegan light, which she made before daylight on the on the morning of the 8th. The wind being free, I ran on into Round Pond harbor, which is a little port east from Pemaquid. Here I rested a day, while the wind rattled among the pine-trees on shore. But the following day was fine enough, and I put to sea ...'

   Well that was a mighty fine Christmas Eve to be reading this gift of a gift and to hit on Round Pond, where my Mom was spending that Christmas and my sisters and nieces, nephews all gathering. (Well Waldoboro actually but .. 'the Pond' is the spot) So Captain Slocum's last port of call or port of rest in the USA, on his magical journey was little old Round Pond.

   Find the book if you want an excellent read.

On the Road ... Journey's of the Spirit

So I have been holding on to Johnny Adams copy of 'On The Road' for the past year. It's high time I returned it to him. But first...

Just one more of those lingering must share items .. that keeps getting put off. It keeps waiting for a better day. Push forward again Guy, clean up one little something on your oversized to do list with the last few days of old 2015 left.


 Zooming through America, the two young Adventurers, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise...

 ' And he talked all night. As in a dream we were zooming back through sleeping Washington and back in the Virginia wilds, crossing the Appomattox River at daybreak, pulling up at my brother's door at eight A.M.. And all this time Dean was tremendously excited about everything he saw, everything he talked about, every detail of every moment that passed. He was out of his mind with real belief. "And of course now no one can tell us that there is no God. We've passed through all forms. You remember Sal when I first came to New York and I wanted Chad King to teach me about Nietzche. You see how long ago? Everything is fine, God exists, we know time. Everything since the Greeks has been predicted wrong. You can't make it with geometry and geometrical systems of thinking.. It's all this!" He wrapped his finger in his fist; the car hugged the line straight and true. "And not only that but but we both understand that I couldn't have time to explain why I know and you know God exists." At one point I moaned about life's troubles---how poor my family was, how much I wanted to help Lucille, who was also poor and had a daughter. "Troubles, you see, is the generalization-word for what God exists in. The thing is not to get hung up. My head rings!' he cried, clasping his head. He rushed out of the car like Groucho Marx to get cigarettes---that furious ground-hugging walk with the coattails flying, except that he had no coattails.'

   Last year I read and reread this book... savoring the moments. Carrying it with me in my backpack
like I was 18 years old again.  Neil Casady or Dean Moriarty as Kerouac renamed him was a pretty high energy man who not only helped define 'The Beats' in the 1950's, but as many of you know
he became a force, a heroic figure in the Counter Culture of the 60's, Cowboy Neil who was on the bus to Never Never Land that Tom Wolfe wrote about in the 'Electric Kool Aid Acid Test'. Con man
, genius or  psycho drug taker at the end, counting railroad ties in Mexico..

  How many millions and millions of humans who have had the glimpse beyond the chaos? Seen the rushing world through our windows and then suddenly getting the Wow as it is all revealed to be orderly rows, for one split second you see. Then it falls back to chaos again.

  Last year I was winding up my days as a cab driver. My constant back ache was way too much. Occasionally I would take day shifts in total disregard of my exhaustion in getting up at 5 AM, frequently after a night at Peri's Open Mic or whatever, whenever I was not an early morning person
and I was struggling to maintain the persona of friendly, safe, cab driver. All I wanted to do was shut my eyes. I pulled up in front of a College Hall over at Dominican College a few minutes early for a time call picking up some unknown person for some unknown destination. I pulled 'On the Road' out of my backpack again... and cut to the chase. I'll just read that ending again. And I do.. and I am so tired that as I read I feel a tear forming in my eye or eyes, got all emotional. It happens more often when I am really really tired.

 I am not going to ruin this book for you If I share that last paragraph. The book is about the journey
not what imaginary moment the author decides to end his tale. If you want -- don't read the rest, but here it goes...

  Jack and Neil have split up again, not necessarily upon the best of terms, not on the worse just ... kind of sad.

  Kerouac wraps it up with this paragraph.

  'So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty. I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.'

  Something about that melancholy blessing. Anyways that sunny Fall day around midday in San Rafael I wiped away a couple of tears and waited for the person who needed the taxi. Young college students were going hither and fither oblivious to some ancient manuscript and some ancient cab driver. (Not hardly ancient) I told myself who ever stepped in my cab I was going to read that paragraph to... and see what if anything happens. I will test some young mind I say to myself. Finally there appears some round, slow moving, graying, female with a walker (I seem to remember, maybe just a cane). She gets herself into the cab, I don't remember if I even got out to help her.

  She tells me she is going to Sausalito which is a lucrative ride from San Rafael and I will have time
to talk a bit. So I find a way to tell her that she is going to have to listen to me read her something from a book. I ask her if she knew much of anything about the 'Beatniks' of the 50's, the Beat Generation.. Yes she says. She and her husband were young then, they hung out in campuses, yes my Husband was aware, maybe even was part of something... Is what I picked up from her. So At the first stop light I begin to read.. but this proves difficult and I put the book down as we drive down to Sausalito. Her name is Jackie, afterwards I scribbled a few notes in a notebook. 'So... as we parked over near the Sausalito Library where who knows.. maybe Kerouac spent an afternoon there. So I read it again... and I was getting choked up again. Kind of embarrassing actually.

  She seemed very receptive as when I was finished she said Oh My..  Yes God is Pooh Bear. She says her husband passed away a few years back. Apparently it wasn't sudden. The Family gathered, their children, grown up as it were, around the bed. In her Husbands arms she told me was a Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal one of the kids had brought for Pop. 'Yes, God is Pooh Bear. God is Kindness.'
She told me. I had tears on my cheeks again. We hugged. She thanked me. 'This is one of the jewels of life moments' she tells me...

 Anyhow that's what happened, more or less, time to finally return this great book to Johnny Adams.
 God is Pooh Bear? said Kerouac. Hmmm.
 

 

East Coast Tour 2015

  Nothing is Easy... if I was to tell you I am having a great time all is wonderful . That would not be exactly true. However the uplift of my spirit that seems to happen whether the blues seem to have me squarely down... then boom! More magic moments. Of course how can anyone be down surrounded by friends and family with such beauty surrounding me. I ain't down. Always waking up.

So let us deal with this impossible world NYC manifests all around me and I am sadly impressed as just as you thought maybe 20 years ago that why would anyone want to cram another million people in here... anyways. What the heck is sustainable?

 Green dreams.

 Drove into Manhattan with the 1971 Grateful Dead CD playing. Blasting. That woke me up. Delivering the squash blossoms to Morse's fabulous crew of women at the Farmstand down in Union Square. 'I had to move.. move.. Really had to move! That's why if you please...  Tears came down my cheeks for Jerry listening to Wharf Rat.  Anyways guess I am an old Dead Head. A lucky young man was I to see them so often around 1971. What happened to the present says I. 'What present?!' said Hunter to me a couple of years ago when I bumped into him. Sadly.

  Apparently there are gigs waiting back in Fairfax for me. Sounds good. Probably be back by the 23rd maybe earlier. Likely Amtrak again.

Politics and Wave Formations

   On the Friday before I left for my East Coast adventure I stopped into the San Anselmo Town Hall and picked up the papers to run for Town Council. The night before I had changed my Voter Registration from San Rafael to San Anselmo to be eligible for this post. On Sunday I left my apartment in Fairfax packing guitar, my Mexican Acoustic, and over the shoulder bag with, a couple of extra T shirts, couple of socks, the election material, (two folders worth of rules and regs)  a couple of CD's Grateful Dead's, Skull and Roses, purchased 5 months ago (still havn't given it a listen) a CD from guitar teacher, Freewheeling Frank of 40 Blues Grooves... anyways packing relatively light.

  I had to get 20 nominating signatures before I left. That Sunday I got 19.. maybe that would get me through, the deadline was this Friday the Seventh.. managed to finally get to Oakland and get on the 1:30 AM bus to Reno and my journey was underway.. cut to the chase. I respectfully have withdrawn my name as a candidate for the San Anselmo Town Council, (due to a few rules that I wasn't aware of when my journey east began) make it impossible to be in two places at the same time, there might be a lesson for me there. I didn't realize I had to sign in person at the San Anselmo Town Hall when I drop off the papers. Am not going to jump on a plane to make that happen.

  I still will try to lay out my platform and maybe get a jump on the 2016 campaign if I so choose.

  Every thought seems to be still... how do we emph emphhh grunt push.. ! Get ourselves in top shape, like aligned, like on a mission to bring about an Independent Earth People revolution of real sustainability. Not just Greenwash. Not blame and fingerpointing. Well stop grunting, fretting and pushing, Guy. It won't work that way. Still we all do what we can and some of us who feel like we have some thing to give, to help get that old Crowbar in their to leverage a little motion, maybe just with the success of our own lives, trying to embody our own best wishes, who knows.

 I swam out to this beautiful little Rock with my younger brother Roger out into Biscay Pond. This ancient glacier built lake on the Pemaquid Peninsula that encompasses some of Damariscotta and all of Bristol, Maine. It's a good swim, I never would have believed it a possible swim till Rog pushed me a few years back to prove my manly courage. Rog thought it might be a half mile out to the little mound of rocks that rise out of the lake. My own guess was more like a mile, though I was even willing to make it a mile and a quarter, figuring it just might be for all I know.. and Rog acknowledged it might make a better story. So we went out there on this beautiful but windy day waves steadily slapping us in the face as we.. dog-paddled, sidestroked, occasionally backstroked our way out there. We made it out there brothers, 63 year old and a 53 year old. Pondered things on the way, the little struggle, mortality, ... we stood up on the Rocks in the wind and the Sun and talked about things. Life, Nature, Earth... Rog has the ability to put words together nicely. The 'entitlement to destructiveness' I remember thinking of us humans. As I might look at all the lots for sale, and the fresh cut roads that were never there in my youth along the shores of Biscay.

 Or anywhere or Jet Set lifestyles or whatever.. and the ease of which a steady wind can stir this big lake (5 miles long?) (called a pond perhaps in New England Humor) to raise up waves. On the way back the waves were with us and they were beautiful, the sunlight dancing off them as we patiently worked our way back. Glorious. The water was warm. The location incredible. Time is up. Got to get back to Round Pond. Get to have Mom's New England Clam Chowder tonight, Shana Murphy-Bonstin and her kids Stella and Phinneas are with us. Rog and me. Maybe we will visit the beautiful Pemaquid Point lighthouse ...

Ukiah day 2

From August 2014


I have 48  minutes left of computer communication on this Ukiah Pub Library computer.

Argghh! That's not much.

Last night at the Ukiah Brewery and Restaurant a friendly and pretty good fun Open Mic. Comparisons to Peri's Open Mic.. I'll let that go. (Fairfax there is not much out there that can compete.) I ponder a bit what I am doing attempting still to be a 'musician' when there are already so many excellent under appreciated artists out there. That's Allright.

Two nights ago on the motel TV I saw some CSPAN hearings by the progressive congressional caucus regarding the Children's March to the US. I didn't get to see the entire hearings. What i saw was three young people a 15 year old girl, 15 year old boy, 12 year old girl. I heard of the despair, and danger of life in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala etc.. and the need to escape. The congresspeople were moved by the courage of the kids. I didn't hear who was financing the children's escape over 100's of miles and then finding a 'Coyote' to get them across the border. Over the years I've met a couple of very sweet Central American women who told me they have children back in their home countries that they haven't seen in 3, 4, 5 years, how deeply sad they were living in separation. I just couldn't easily accept this in my heart that you abandon your children for the money in the US. Of course they hope to what? Return to their home country and build a nice house?
Marry an American and bring their children up to the US?

The children must have money to make their way up to the border. The children at the hearing were very sweet and the story of their foul treatment by border immigration is pretty shocking. Kept in freezing (very cold) confinement, two ham sandwiches a day. Obama did you listen? Pick up the phone Obama. Say This is the President. 'Who is in charge of these holding cells?' I haven't heard about him doing that.

 The children want to grow up to be doctors and lawyers one wants to go to Stanford University. Wouldn't every child in the world? One female California Congressperson kept pressing with a question' What would you advise your young friends and cousins back home?'  What could they answer but the kids wouldn't take the bait. No they couldn't say everyone come come it's worth it once you get past the border patrol they can reunite you with your dear parents, uncles aunts. Come to America Children of the World!

 Why does that chill me? Why have these third world countries fallen to such horrible levels of civic pride?
Why does violence, and greed rule? Where are the schools and Universities in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala that children should take great pride in attending and becoming Doctors and Lawyers in their own country. Everything is looting and ripping off and I think the problem emanates from the US. We don't give a damn about those countries, we want their cheap labor, we need their cheap labor. We undermine villages and communities throughout Central America and Mexico with our 'free' immigration policies.

  Meantime wealth keeps aggregating upwards. Everywhere.

  So Obama on CSPAN last night I only could watch for about 10 minutes though I told myself, don't turn away, take notes. He was giving a speech somewhere. He looked on top of his game. Shirt sleeves rolled up tie still on. The customary rows of people behind him looking down approvingly upon his back. (When did that start, people seated behind a president becoming the backdrop? Use to be as President you would always put the American Flag behind you. So people would get the idea, I the President equals your Flag.. )
Now it's I represent the people ... see all the smiling people behind me.) He reminded me of one of these new round of late night talk show hosts, whose smiles and aura of confidence is supposed to make you believe yes I am entertaining, this is funny,

 Obama shared some good news. Homeprices are rising. We are now the world's #1 oil and gas producer.'
Did he really say that Guy? I think he did. Yet we have enemies. 'Congress' If it wasn't for .....

 

Bang a Gong!

 Demagogue someone who claims it's always dem' who are the problem, never us... Never US. Thank you Swami Beyondananda for allowing me to appropriate that line. Oh my God.. so much time of seeing things going wrong and not finding the means to stand up, dig in, speak out, write a letter. I know you are thinking just chill Guy.. calm down. Maybe a calm letter would be good.. a series of calm letters. Do I have the brain power to put thoughts in logical coherent order?

 'It's time to matter, the Earth will see you through' appropriating a memory of a line from an old Grateful Dead song probably the tune was 'Mountains of the Moon' cerca 1967 from the Aoxomoxoa album..  47 years later...

 What are the year's most censored stories? Sorry that's censored. Do we even have a news media anymore... The 4th Estate packed up and left.

 Ommmmmm... breathe remember it's all my fault. And it's OK. ommmmmmmm.

 

January 10 'Common Sense' Day

Today according to my newspaper was the day the Tom Paine's pamphlet got published in 1776 that help galvanized the American people to get it together and embrace Independence.

Now more than ever, do we need a shot of .... Common Sense or maybe an Uncommon Sense that could be held in Common.

Where do we even start?

That Life is Fragile precious and deeply threatened by our ......

Obama and the State of the Union

'America, for all that we have endured; for all the grit and hard work required to come back; for all the tasks that lie ahead, know this: The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is strong. (Applause.)

At this moment -- with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry, booming energy production -- we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth. It’s now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next 15 years and for decades to come.'


How do we analyze the words of our President? What is the critical lens which we as individuals use to make sense of the grand rhetoric that every year every President trots out be they Republican or Democrat. Honed by the best speech writers money can buy, a speech built on a rhythm that allows for frequent response wherein your supporters are obliged to applaud if not stand up like some ritual Cheerleaders hoping that the noise of their clapping hands will overwhelm your emotions as you watch on TV... Yes by Golly this man is so Right.
The man in the Pulpit.

 I do not join the applause. Where is our vision? Where are the words? What have you done Mr Meyer?

Help!

     "Who cried out?
      Gather your strength and listen; the whole heart of man is a single outcry. Lean against your breast to hear it; someone is struggling and shouting within you.
      It is your duty every moment, day and night, in joy or in sorrow, amid all daily necessities, to discern this Cry with vehemence or restraint, according to your nature, with laughter or with weeping, in action or in thought, striving to find out who is imperiled and cries out.
      And how we may all be mobilized together to free him.
      Amidst our greatest happiness someone within us cries out: "I am in pain! I want to escape your happiness! I am stifling!"
      Amidst our deepest despair someone within us cries out: "I do not despair! I fight on! I grasp at your head, I unsheathe myself from your body, I detach myself from the earth, I cannot be contained in brains, in names, in deeds!"
      Out of our most ample virtue someone rises up in despair and cries out: "Virtue is narrow, I cannot breathe! Paradise is small and cannot contain me! Your God resembles a man, I do not want him!"
      I hear the savage cry, and I shudder. The agony that ascends within me composes itself, for the first time, into an integral human voice; it turns full face toward me and calls me clearly, with my own name, with the name of my father and my race.
      This is the moment of greatest crisis. This is the signal for the March to begin. If you do not hear this Cry tearing at your entrails, do not set out.
      Continue, with patience and submission, your sacred military service in the first, second, and third rank of preparation.
      And listen: In sleep in an act of love or of creation, in a proud and disinterested act of yours, or in a profound despairing silence, you may suddenly hear the Cry and set forth.
     Until that moment my heart streams on, it rises and falls with the Universe. But when I hear the Cry, my emotions and the Universe are divided into two camps.
     Someone within me is in danger, he raises his hands and shouts: "Save me!" Someone within me climbs, stumbles, and shouts: "Help Me! "
      Which of the two eternal roads shall I choose? Suddenly I know my whole life hangs on this decision -- the life of the entire Universe.
      Of the two I choose the ascending path. Why? For no intelligible reason, without any certainty; I know how ineffectual the mind and all the small certainties of man can be in this moment of crisis.
      I choose the ascending path because my heart drives me toward it. "Upward! Upward! Upward!" My heart shouts, and I follow it trustingly.
      I feel this is what the dread primordial cry asks of me. I leap to its side. I cast in my lot with it's own.
      Someone within me is struggling to lift a great weight, to cast off the mind and flesh by overcoming habit, laziness, necessity.
      I do not know from where he comes or where he goes. I clutch at his onward march in my ephemeral breast, I listen to his panting struggle, I shudder when I touch him.
      Who is he? I prick up my ears. I set up various signs, I sniff the air. I ascend groping upwards, panting and struggling. The dread and mystical March begins.'

     Nikos Kazantzakis 1922 from 'The Rock Garden' first published in 1939