Where I Have Been Part 6

Now for those of you not informed on the ways of the gamer, they are a unique and troubled lot. A lot of outsiders, a lot of fringers one might say, they gravitate to this realm because of a need to be more then what they are, or even to be able to be someone they aren’t. when I was able to actually play D&D {dungeons and dragons that is} I was always looking for an interesting class or “job” for my character. I would try, like some do I’m sure, to tap in at times to different sections of my psyche. Some were not people I would want to meet, some were fine people with decent outlooks on their existence.

Now the last time I was surrounded by a large section of a gaming community, I was once again visiting the same friend, but this time it was at a gaming convention in LA. They were in the middle of a LARP of vampire and they were in full costume. It was quite fun to watch them go hither and yon about the hotel and watch the “straights” get weirded out. At this meeting I had my daughter and my wife with me, and the daughter was around five I think. We all sat down with my friend and played a game of zombies. Now if you’ve never heard of it the game has a simple premise. Get out of the city alive and make it to the helipad. So far, and I’ve bought the game since then, I’ve never played a game where anyone’s made it to the helipad. But I admit I need to game a lot more.

So, shpeel after shpeel, and drink after drink , I helped to celebrate the birth of my friend in an LA bar that tried for the pub look. Now these guys, they are some cider drinking fiends. Pitcher after pitcher went down these guys and I sat with my mouth open and wondered how they’d be able to find the road. But find the road they did, and quite well I must say. After a stop at a burrito joint and a walk down the street doing hooker spotting we made it to the friends house of my friend. When we got into the pad, the others that were left were drinking sake and talking D&D. another thing about these gamer types, the game never ends and the talking never stops. Rules questions, character generation queries, its all tied in to it. When at the SOE fan faire I was inundated with the game as well. But when in Vegas, the last thing I want to do is sit in a hotel room and talk about a game. There are drinks to drink and half naked women to ogle.

So I went back to the friends joint, after the sake stop, and literally fell to a deep sleep on a large sack thing they have as furniture. They are hella comfortable and quite malleable.

I awoke the next day and flitted my way up to the north, pausing ever so slightly to drop off shirts at the other friends in Ventura, and then off to the north, to the center of California and my home, my wife, my kids.

Did I mention the wedding?

Where I Have Been Part 5

Strange ramblings, and now Jesus is answering callers. And like always, for those of you not up on the info, the callers to this show are very intelligent, but trying and testing. Jesus is getting kind of a little snippy, but he’s holding his own. Not doing too bad a job there…er…Jesus.

{A few days later}

Jesus is over, word world is on for the son, and it’s been a few days.

After the wedding I went home, the long road 154 shucking and jiving, and I thought, what should I do? For the website that is. I create and create, yet I need a zinger or twelve for the book to be any good or the least bit successful. So whats next? What’s the ticket?

After the going home and the sleeping and resting and recuperation, I received a call from a friend that resides in Hollywood. His birthday was coming up, and mine had passed, so he was calling to wish me a belated happy birthday and I wished him one as well. He told me of his brothers wedding {is it in the air or what?} in Florida on an island. Yes, an actual island in the tropical waters of the south, with a helicopter to whisk away the blissfully wedded couple into the air and their honeymoon. So then the friend says he’s having a birthday party at a pub down there, called the cat and fiddle actually, and I ask if that’s an invitation. He says sure and I start the work on how to get down there.

So, I call up the Ventura recently married bliss folks and check to see if she wants the shirts. She says yes and I’m in like Flynn for the party.

The drive down was wonderful and relaxing, and when I got to the buddies in Hollywood, things were stressful. He wanted to get there as soon as possible and he thought his significant other was taking too long. Possibly he was, but I didn’t really notice. I changed my shirt, to a better spiral, and pestered him to change to the shirt I had given him {a totally bitchin looking bulls eye pattern} and we went out the door.

We arrived about seven minutes past the time that the party was starting and there was one person already there. A sweet girl, she actually checked out the site while she was there and for that I am greatly appreciative. So we sat down, took over the back right side of the place, and the folks wishing birthday greetings began to come one by one, sometimes in twos and threes, for the party to celebrate another year for my friend.

Every person that came through the door was given my shpeel, what the shirts were made of, the weight, the dyes used, all of it. And it was funny, the reactions were always different. Some would kind of settle back and a small smile would play across their faces. The others, they would look slightly perturbed and irritated that they had to deal with this freak in color. Those folks though, I made sure they got it ALL. Because of that angle though, I ended up selling two shirts at the party and got a lot of cards into a lot of hands. They were all gamers, most playing a live action vampire game, called a LARP{Live Action Role Playing} and were there to be able to play the very next day. Which was a disappointment for me as I needed to be gone very early in the morning to make it back for a company picnic with the Fam. So it was hang out and drink for the evening kid of thing, which was fun as I hadn’t done that in quite some time.

Where I Have Been Part 4

I gave both her and her new man a shirt, and then called her for the trip this weekend and sold her a shirt for all her kids. I’m spreading the good love of color all over the place. I’ve outfitted my seventy odd year old parents in the glory, and the rest of the populace is coming along whether they know it or not.

But back to the Ventura wedding.

Everyone there in Ventura seems to have a script for all sorts of bizarre cosmic frop as some have said. It was quite tasty I must say, but they all would move, en masse, out the door, or into a room, or talk about it often in front of me with no knowledge who I was. Quite possibly they were told before I got there, that’s seems feasible, so, I blew them all away with the Shotgun effect, and baby if you’ve been there, you’ve been everywhere. I slammed them all back with one lungful and choked down the leavings as well. The universal response, and one asked when I arrived this next time, if I had “That Pipe”. And the question was asked by one who, yes dear I hate to say, is younger then the said implement of destruction. By two years.

So about this wedding.

We all went over to a place at the harbor and had Mexican food. But before the food, I had rum and cokes, and then had to find other food to be able to bring my head somewhat back to the planetoid I reside on. Then we all ate, and I was whisked away from the party to the confines of a vehicle and the hazy smoke of Ganga. Wouldn’t you know, that last G word isn’t in the dictionary for Microsoft. The things one teaches their puter. I had fun and hung out, but began to miss terribly my family. So I went back to the road and followed her home.

That was the complain over the trip to the Ghetto hot spring as well. I’m always leaving.

Which sucks, because I don’t think I can actually help it. I’ve always been in love with the road, and what she shares. The trip to Vermont and really every other trip, be it long or short in my life, is a tribute to my lifestyle. When I had gotten my license and had positioned myself with an ability to drive at a moments notice, I would wake up at night. Three or later in the morning, and I was awake. I would snap open my eyes, and then I’d creep out of the house and drive around the town I lived in, grew up in for most of my life. I would drive around, obeying the speed limits, and let my eyes wander the town at will. It was usually foggy or at least heavily misted, and the glowing lights would flare on my windshield. Halos surrounded everything and the world was being washed, scrubbed sort of by the night, the dew, the bugs, the night creatures. All of it was witnessed by me, chronicled in my head for the reason that still, to this day, eludes me. I get to itching and I need an escape. Not necessarily from anything, but more into something. We watched that new Sean Penn movie “Into the Wild” tonight and I understood his plight and feelings, just not his militant need for such severe separation. It was a good movie, a great movie, and it made me want to go to Alaska, which honestly is a feeling that never leaves me. That’s something that needs to have its own day and dear reader, it shall. But I’ve always experienced a wanderlust that shows me things every time I give in to it. Mostly good things. I really only try to remember the good ones.

Where I Have Been Part 3

Was at the fair one year. Took my cute little monkey girl and we walked around all the buildings and weird “C’mere man let me “_____”(fill in thing here)”for ya!” it’s crazy and reminds me of the original bazaar opened on the desert trade routes through the really big deserts in around sixteen hundred A.D. like a really good Swap Meet. Oh ya, Swap meet.

So I’ve been appearing recently at the local Swap Meet. At the drive in. yup. Big assed parking lot and theres the strange gypsy nomadic selling and buying that occurs. It’s a whole trip unto itself.

So there I am. It’s at least 4 A.M. in the morning, and I’ve been here for at least a half an hour and there’s people in front of me. At least six to eight cars, maybe more, are in front of me and It’s my first day doing this. At least for my shirts. I had been here before with a buddy who made quite a decent living at the Swap Meet. Very good living. But yet the shirt thing was new for me and it was my first time. It was a bad Mojo angle, but it ended up being quite good for I sold three shirts, but it was in the end of the month and according to lore and legend it was a bad time to go. No one has money at the end of the month, and the Swap Meet is a hard sell area for tye-dyes. I was able, through the love and polish of the shpleel, to sell three shirts that day. It was an up moment, the following week I sold nothing, and the week after (this one) I went to Hollywood and sold. Then to Ventura, to a friends house to sell to her as well.

Now this friend got married recently. Was a nice ceremony, and her dress was really beautiful now I love her, and her family. I’ve known her and her sister for years. She, the Ventura one, graduated in my class. Her sister has moved many times, and her son’s first ride was in her arms in my truck. A little Toyota I had many years ago, and I drove slowly for her, and carefully. She was quite persuasive, and no she didn’t have to inflict bodily pain upon me to get me to condone to the rate of speed and the turns. I did it for the stormy boy, and he knows whom he is. So, back to the Ventura one. Dress is beautiful, ceremony was in am Mormon Church and it was a total trip. No crosses, anywhere. Now for a Methodist baptized pagan and reader of strange cults and freaky deakies and hugger of trees, the lack of the sign of pain and suffering emblazoned everywhere else, it was a trip to find it absent here. That was the first thing. The other thing was the circular construction of the church. It was not unlike the bastion of a castle. Ringed by something and then cradled in the center of that circle. The belief of its people. Spiritually, their source.

Where I Have Been Part 2

I’ve scanned

Re-written entirely

Altered and edited

And generally freaked out. Finished a story the other day I started not long after the birth of my daughter. My eight year old daughter. I walked around all day and rubbed my hair back from the crown of my head and just repeated, over and over again like a mantra these special words. “oh wow.” Rub rub rub. “Oh Wow.” Rub rub rub. It was kinda freaky from the outside I guess. Must have been judging from the looks and sighs and lowering eyebrows of my lovely wifeykins. But hey man, it was freaky on the inside. It was freaky a lot.

By the way, the story? It’s in the book. Also will be in the store. Maybe other places.

So . Here I am. Writing as my favorite show with the guest host, also the live host as well one might say, and he’s interviewing Jesus Christ. Now, hold on a minute, lets not get all flappy and freaky and wigged out. I’m pretty sure, though I could be wrong (maybe), that it’s a guy, whose real good at the question and answer thing. I’m actually amazed at the job their doing. The Jesus, “character” I guess, is quite on it. I’m thinking prearranged questions. If not, it’s REALLY amazing. But I’m going for guy. He’s talking of Judas as if he ad a choice. Interesting that he stated that the scriptures were all correct according to the bible, but according to the Scripture according to Judas, Judas seemed to get the short end of the stick, and knew it. Was asked as far as I know.

Their getting ready to open the lines for the listeners to call in. the questions should be interesting.

Just got back from the ultimate in “Ghetto Soaks” as I’ve quantified it in the grand scheme of things. I’ve been to some really good hot tubs. Some man made, some not. I’ve sat in granite bowls and felt the water trickle down a causeway of about an inch or so as it simultaneously bubbled up through my toes. It takes a two and a half mile walk up to the site and people many time take their stuff, and then strip down and place it all on a waterproof floatation device. They make a raft of their stuff and they take it across the snow melt river that flows next to these granite pools. And when you’ve gotten the maximum angle from the warmth and all, well you jump in that ball chasing to the middle of your neck water and hang out, for just a minute. What your trying to do is judge the right moment, right before hypothermia sets in and you cramp to your death. When that precise moment is reached you leap from that devil water and sink in bliss and tingly extremities into a warm and beautiful soak. The other tubs, as noted and chronicled in my first writing experiment through my eyes, (also in the book. Hmm…I’m seeing a theme here.) were on a trip through Vermont that I took over a year ago in the summer of 2007. it was a grand experiment and was fruitful, but I think I screwed myself by procrastination. I needed to chronicle much better, and be more visually and auditorily concise to my subjects. I slipped and wasn’t fateful in my chronicling. There shall be revisions I’m sure. Probably on the website as well, in the shop, that’s not there yet, that needs to be done, yes this I know. So through this trip I chronicled a startling hot tub area in the north of California. It was amazing and rejuvenating and a great way to start the trip. There is also a set of tubs near Avila that are quite splendiferous and sparkly, though more expensive then the Ghetto Soak I just returned from. No, what makes the Ghetto Soak Ghetto, yet redeemed even almost in spite of the weird squishy goo at the bottom of it is the jets that stream from the center of this small “causeway” thing. They stretch out in all directions and angle downward. Some have hard sprays and some had more shower headish sprays. But they all have a way of loving the body the way a good hard massage takes a pounding out on you, but in the end its good.

Where I Have Been Part 1

Where I Have Been

In the land of 20/20

I was allowed, the other day, to be able to read the first book, my choosing, that I’ve been able to read for a year. It was “Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other American Tales”. It was glorious. Something in this century. Amazing.

Well dear readers of this tired, yer energized informer of the truth (not too sure if it’s the truth with the little T or the truth with the big T.) of his existence and freaky nature, it has been too long and for this I apologize.

It’s been crazy in the ridgeorama world what with those pesky schoolings and learnings and brain fillings and luscious painful wanted curse of education that brings through itself a further love of all things written. I’ve been getting educated, and when that was put on hold (one more semester people. just one more.) as it has for this long age of learning and growth, I’ve been busy. Ohhhhhh…I’ve been busy like an evil thing that grows in ones head and festers. until lanced. And maybe it’s like a glorious sunrise after waking in the cool morning light of the mountains, maybe in the sierras. Yes. The sierras it is, tent camping of course. Oh hey! Yosemite. Ya. Yosemite where you get the cool shaded mornings and the ring of granite enclosing and protecting you in the bosom of the actual rock of the earth. Mental note to self, plan vacay for fam.

Well. The books going, as I’ve stated, and I’ve gone off the deep end in creativity. I’m an actual tye-dyer and it’s blowing my mind. At some point this summer a shop may appear quietly in the corner, have no fear. Visit and plan, as one should, on all things tye-dye. I am amazed at the difference when I was trying to be somewhat standard. At least on the colors. But then I unravel them, and they shine like a light taste of sweet cherry, the first of the season, on ones lips and tongue. Absolutely tasty, and after selling them (WHAT FOLLOWS IS THE SHPEEL!!!!! The shirts are six point one ounce cotton fiber shirts, {turn and indicate shoulder stitching} all double stitched along the seams and I use the procion dye{Dharma Trading Co.} dyes that literaly bond with the molecular level of the cotton fabric. I’m waiting on the trials, but so far no wear on the shirts after seven months.) I hope as well to be able to freak out on the published circuit. So far I’ve been writing, and then I wrote, and after all that I put some typing into the word processing program.