Leaving Reno

Leaving Reno in the sun's long rays. To our left, the western range still harbors remnants of snow. Above its peaks, an armada of wedge shaped clouds is sailing east. To our right, our shadow flails in the roadside sage . Soon it will be dark and the thing will be absorbed. A phantom beginning, only the ahead will tell the story. Mexico. Sometimes you have to go north to get south.

Trip

I should be packing, getting ready for this journey, but here I sit writing to you, the occasional wayfarer stumbling by in the theoretical future. It's kind of crazy. The curling pages of my 5 x 8 yellow pad sits by my side ready to catch whatever "must do" flits through my head. I'm not the legal type. The 8 X 10 yellow legal pad is too much for me. The 5 x 8s are okay though. Cheap. So far, I've crossed out 2 items. Not a good start. Mr. Lee is slashing through his lists. He has 3 full size legal pads for 3 different categories. In fact he just breezed by with the latest update. He just got off the phone with Rich from Lofty Shelters. Rich is the owner. We bought our tent from him about a year ago. It's great. A real money saver in the long run, but like any gear, it's the accessories that bite you in the ass. We needed a spare handle. We lost ours on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere Utah last summer and, if we hadn't found it via a seriously serious back track crawl over several miles of dirt road rimming steep cliffs over which anything that falls...disappears....our trip would have been over. The handle is the key. It cranks up the tent. Losing the handle is like losing the keys to your car. No. Worse. A vehicle can be hotwired. Losing the handle to the tent is the end. Pry the tent open and that's it. Kaput. No tent. Even driving would be fucked. So a new handle is on the way and Mr. Lee gets to check one off his Jeep list. Me? I've just burned another 20 minutes writing this. And why? For what? Okay. I've gotta stop. Back to work.

The Early Bird and Mexico

Okay, let's get one thing straight here. I'm not actually afraid to go to Mexico. No really. No more than I'm afraid to get up in the morning. I have to admit, getting up in the morning has been a problem in the past. A big problem. But that was then and this is not then... and getting up is not such a problem. In fact, I'm generally pretty enthusiastic these mornings and have been for a good long time. I won't get into it here but trust me when I say I do know what it's like living under the covers, literally. Anyway that's enough to bring me around to the other half of my duel topic, the Early Bird.

The Early Bird in my tiny world happens to be a Magpie. I doubt you've heard but I consider myself quite fortunate on this account. If I'm up earlier enough and quiet enough, there is often a solitary magpie having breakfast in my bird park (read "dirt back yard") before anyone else gets there. Even during the recent snows, there was the one set of big claw prints weaving through the snow, following the seed trail buried below. As a child, the adults made a point of what they assured me was F*A*C*T. The early bird always gets the worm. This is another myth I have lived to witness reality prove otherwise. At least here, the Early Bird here doesn't generally get the best part of the meal. Why? Because she's too early. I put out the goodies... the scraps of bread, new seed, the occasional lump of moldy quiche or cheese and break the water in the ice after she's come and gone. Is there a lesson in this? Sure. Why not? I can squeeze a lesson out of just about anything, even for the Early Bird. Eat breakfast twice.

Reluctant Traveler

We're leaving for Mexico in two weeks, Oaxaca City to be exact, which is located in the mountains of Oaxaca. The plan is to meander through Mexico, camping as much as possible along the way, stay in Oaxaca City for a month and then perhaps drift down into Guatemala or go to Belize for a bit but that depends on how we (I) am doing. This is something I wouldn't be doing on my own, first because I couldn't afford it and second because I'm lazy and a chicken. Lee is the mastermind. A lot of people would be ecstatic over an adventure like this but me? I tremble and groan. I'm pathetic. Ah well. I've lived through the worst of times I guess I can survive a little kick ass fun. Lee is an angel and I, well I am one strange bird.

Happy Leap Year!

Good-bye February.

Not Mick Fleetwood

In case you're wondering, that guy in Trafalgar Square is not Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mack. In a recent post, Plonk and the Stranger Pigeons, I pondered the possibility of me and my backyard becoming overrun with pigeons and included that photo to illustrate the idea. The next day I got an email saying that the bird man was Mick Fleetwood, which didn't seem right so I wrote the photographer, Paul Gapper, and asked him. He wrote back, "it is just someone who was standing there at the time and not Mick Fleetwood". So, rest easy. It's not Mick on the skids. BTW, Paul's site is pretty cool. Check it out.

Stormy Wednesday

Yesterday I mentioned how it seldom it rains around here and then today it rained that dreary, all day kind of rain that Seattle and London are so famous for. Now tonight, it's snowing. That, at least, is more in keeping with the region. Anyway, I wrote a poem today I'm calling....


ASH WEDNESDAY


rain is forever

yesterday
lies on its back
caught in memory loops
legs spread open
the rate of decay is terrifying

before it’s too late
I confess
my mind has a past
wealth at this level
does not come without a price



-asha

Plonk and the Stranger Pigeons

Plonk has been coming back for over a year and he's very cool about it. The only other pigeon he's brought is his girlfriend so I don't blame him. Maybe she's kept her beak shut too. I suppose it was inevitable, but somehow 3 other pigeons have caught on about the place and Mr. Lee is getting uptight about it. He doesn't want to have to hose pigeon shit off our roof. You might be thinking, "let the rain do it" but I have to remind you, we live in the desert so forget the rain washing much of anything. Spit on the street. It stays there. All the various drops, plops, smears and splatters on the streets and buildings stay where they fall and accumulate, layer after layer, under the rain that dries in the air about 500 above the ground. The sludge of civilization does get cleaned eventually but not so much by water as by wind. The wind sandblasts the grime and scrubbing tumbleweeds sweep it away. But back to Plonk and the stranger pigeons.

They don't come with Plonk so I suspect they first followed him here secretly. In fact, Plonk chases them off when he sees them. Mr. Lee chases them off too. I believe another one of his fears is that our backyard will become something like Trafalgar Square and I will be like the guy standing in it. He may be right. We shall see.

New week, another Vlorbik winner!

Joey Harrison of Eye Control is the first winner of the Vlorbik Award this week. He wrote, "You must be crazy giving thanks to people for finding your errors. It only encourages pedants like myself to pester you." No comment. Maybe someday Orbalina or I will become better at proofreading but I'm not holding my breath. Until then....thanks everybody.

Secrets, Lies and the Vlorbik Award

Well, Saturday morning and I got another email from Vlorbik. He said he noticed that I corrected a few more "somewhat-charming words" but found no mention of who first discovered them, a detail I had...ah...overlooked. So. That everything stays on the up and up around here....this week there was another recipient of the coveted Vlorbik Award....Joey Harrison of Eye Control, a cool photo blog. Thanks Joey. And yes Vlorbik, I rededicate myself to timely honesty. And just to put everything out on the table, Mr. Lee also found a few typos. That makes him the third recipient. One week, three winners! Woo-hoo!

Ash Canyon Poets Valentine Reading

I just got back from the valentine's day poetry reading at the Comma Cafe. We all read a couple of our own poems and one by a well known poet. We had a good audience and it went really well. I even wrote a piece for the event called the Doctrine of Sixteen Kisses. It's an adaptation of Chapter 3 from Sir Richard Burton's 1883 translation of Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra. Chapter 3 is the one on kissing. Even though the Kama Sutra has a very upfront attitude about sex it's written in formal Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India. Burton's Victorian English fits right in. I condensed and loosen it up a bit although even my version still has a formal air. It seemed to be well received though. I put extra copies out for people to take home so they could try the kisses out for themselves and several were picked up.

Sir Burton was an interesting guy and yes, in case you're wondering, the actor Richard Burton (aka Richard Walter Jenkins), took his stage name from him. Sir Burton was an actor in his own right. Disguised as a Muslim, he was the first Englishmen to enter the holy city of Mecca. Biographer's describe Sir Burton as an adventurer, linguist, scholar, swordsman, rogue, deviant, genius possessing wild, monstrous talents and defects nearly as grave". He was a master of 35 languages which allowed him to travel freely, passing himself off as an Arab merchant. Burton translated several eastern texts including the Arabian Nights in 16 volumes. However, along with his partner John Hanning Speke, Burton is perhaps most famous for discovering the source of the Nile River in 1858 although, of course, plenty of people and countless wild birds and animals had been there before they showed up and claimed the lake for their queen. Speke did his best to shaft Burton and claim sole credit for discovery but history caught up with him in the end, splitting the fame between them.

Ol Burton even made it to Nevada in 1860 when he took a stage coach along the Pony Express route which offered a trip from the Missouri river to San Francisco in 8 days. So that means he was right here in Carson City where our Valentine reading took place. Of Carson City he wrote that "revolvers are fired even into houses known to contain 'ladies'" and that during the three days he was here he heard of three murders.

Getting back to the Valentines reading....I started out with Unlyric Love Song by A.S.J. Tessimond, then read the Doctrine of Sixteen Kisses, and closed with my poem, Yellow Shoes, which I haven't published yet, but probably will get around to it eventually. I was surprised to see a guy from the local TV station there taping us. Poetry doesn't usually make the news. Bill told me afterwards that I'm going to be on TV. Ha! I don't even have a television. Anyway, I'm glad this day is over. This thing has occupied space in my mind long enough.

The Vlorbik Award

This morning Vlorbik, a fellow zinester, emailed me that I'd used the word "bare" instead of "bear" in my Feb. 6th post. Damn! Laziness again! I hate when I do that. But there's more. I made Vlorbik swear to secrecy but on reflection I've decided that's not such a good idea. I am a terrible speller. I have to run a spell check before posting and if I can't admit that to myself, I have to start by admitting it to you.

So I've created the Vlorbik Award. It's simple. You point out a typo or misused word etc. and as a thank you, I'll send you a treasure. Of course, treasure is subjective. It means I'll email you a poem or photo or send you a rock from my personal collection.

Bush Sets Up Panel To Investigate Himself

oh whoop-de-do.

Spring Cleaning

I've been moving files around like crazy on the Ashabot and it seems to have set a lot of people scrambling to find things. Sorry everybody. Spring house cleaning. Actually, it's the first big re-organization I've done since setting up this website five years ago. Bear with me. It's not over yet.

Plopping calves and the Bag-Lady Party

Several big things to report today. Number one, baby calves are popping up around the valley. Well, not popping up, plopping out. This means the eagles will soon be arriving in Carson Valley. They love the tasty afterbirth and by February, when the majority of calves are born, the eagles will be here in great numbers to greet them and eat their placenta and eat them if they get the chance. Also this morning, I saw a small donkey contentedly scratching his ass on a tree. Being a vision of pure satisfaction, I thought it was worth passing along.

Now that the posters for the valentine's day reading are done, I'm on to the next pressing task of the weekend, preparing the Woman from Beaver Damn Wash for her trip to the surprise birthday party DB Pedlar is throwing for himself. Of course, the Woman from Beaver Damn Wash isn't personally attending. She likes Nevada and the party is in Pennsylvania. It's a bag-lady party and I have to prepare her avatar bag. It's too complicated to explain right now but suffice it to say that since the word got out, everyone around the Ashabot wants in. In fact, I have a near riot on my hands.

Now, I can understand why the Woman from Beaver Damn Wash is so excited. She used to live in the crotch of a old cottonwood tree in Beaver Damn Wash. That's such a remote and wild place, it's understandable she'd be in a tizzy about an invitation to a party. As for the rest of the crew, just mention the word "party" and you have trouble. The Dolls want to go. Pony wants to go. Queenie the Bee wants to go. So does the Lorax. The damn cockroaches have chimed in. I'm sure at this point, the dead shrimp would want to go, if they were still alive. The grumpy old Shipping Squirrel has showed an interest. Even the Swami has been asking about it and he carries a lot of weight around here, in his sweet and unassuming way. I had planned a quiet photo session today, just between me and the Woman from Beaver Damn Wash, but no. I'll at least have to do a couple of group shots to keep the peace. In fact, I don't know why I'm wasting valuable time writing this. The day's nearly over and I still have work to do. After all, they are the voices and I am but their humble servant.

Ash Canyon Poets reading

A few weeks ago Bill Cowee (Ash Canyon Poets), mentioned to me that Comma Coffee where we did the Readable Theatre last month, wanted a poetry reading there for Valentines Day so I volunteered to organize it. I spent the last couple of days designing the poster. I suppose most people would bang one out in about an hour, then get on to more important things, but not me. First I had to look at about a million pictures of cupid, psyche, valentine hearts, cakes and smoothies for just the right images. BTW, some interesting websites pop up when you do a search on the word "smoothies". Then I spent hours tweeking and re-tweeking everything. In the end, I couldn't decided which photo to use, either "Psyche entering Cupids Garden" or a nifty line drawing of Psyche binding Cupid so I made two posters. I put them on my website, if you're interested check them out. At the moment, I'm sick of both of them but I hope you like them.

As for other goings on around the Ashabot, the shrimp died. They were a Christmas gift but didn't live long enough to make it into the blog until now, although I mentioned them in the cockroach diary. Anyway, they're dead. Some "self-sustaining world" that was. I think maybe they didn't get enough light. The damn brochure was so emphatic about not exposing them to too much light, I put them in a room with dim light. Dead. It was kind of sad peering into their little globe and seeing they're decaying carcasses drifing on the bottom. Death Stalks the EcoSphere. Sounds like a cheezy sci-fi.

Bush and the Shit Catapult

We're back, and only a day late this time! Here's a few things that occurred to me as the miles churned by. Don't trust anyone who claims they've lived a meditative life style if they can't sleep sitting up. The desert is not for people who only see the surface of things. Fuck George Bush and the shit catapult that put him in the White House.

Off to Oregon in the morning. I hope this trip doesn't turn into a three week stay, like the last two weekenders have been.

Nevada Journal

I've finally reorganized the Nevada Journal. It was a project I've put off for months. The layout hasn't changed but now the files will be a lot easier to manage. Also, I added several new photos. Once I finish deleting the remaining inactive files, I'll be ready to add new pages, something I haven't done for a long time.

Plonk's back

Plonk and his girlfriend dropped by with some crows today. She seems to be just fine.

The Story of Plonk

The fence in back is lined with crows but Plonk and his girlfriend haven't been around for the last few days. They were here a few days ago but she wasn't doing to well. But before I go any further, I'd better tell you who Plonk is.

I first saw him staggering around in circles in Carson City in the middle of one of it's busiest intersections where Hwy 50 comes into Hwy 395. Now, Hwy 50 in itself can be very dangerous. In its early days, people sometimes had to disassemble their vehicles in order to carry them over difficult parts of the road, or kill and eat their dogs, drink water from the stomachs of dead buffalo or blood from the ears of their mules just to survive the journey. The day Plonk ended up there wasn't so lucky either. Sure the road is paved now but hardly tamed. It's swarming with vulture politicians. The state capitol buildings are only a few blocks away. But the day I first saw Plonk, no one seemed interested in eating him. On the other hand, they didn't seem too concerned about running over him either. It was about noon and cars were bumper to bumper. I stopped. No one honked. I waved at the cars behind me, ran out and grabbed the pigeon and carried him to shelter at the base of a roadside tree. On my way home, I decided to check if the bird was still there. He was and he was still spinning, this time in the parking lot behind a building. I put him in my car and took him home. In the backyard, he continued spinning but more slowly and showed no interest food and water I set out for him.

Lee warned me Plonk would probably be dead by morning but I cut some air vents in a big box, put it over him, weighted the flaps down with rocks so the neighbor cat, Clarence, wouldn't make a mid-night snack out of him and called it night. In the morning I peaked in and Plonk was standing there. Not spinning and not dead. I took the box off and after a minute or two he flew onto the fence and sat. When I got home later that morning, he was gone. He's been coming back ever since. It's been a year and a half. In the spring, he often dropped by with a girlfriend, always the same one.

Earlier this week she came by several times on her own and hung around in the backyard for hours, hardly eating. At first I thought it was just because she felt safe there, or because maybe she was pregnant but then the neighbor found her nesting in his cat's drinking bowl and she let him pick her up. She flew away after he put her out of reach of his cat and I've only seen them once since then so I'm hoping she's okay.

My mother's death

Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother's death. My sister Cc'd my brother and me a reminder, accompanied with an old family photo. I lit a candle. But all day it lingered in the back of my mind just how different I look from the rest of my family. It's certainly occurred to me before but the photo reminded me. I look more like an Iranian exchange student with a cryptic smirk than a cheery American suburbanite. My brother provides a bit of balance with his pork chop sideburns, but I definitely look like an outsider. Since I woke up this morning, I've been speculating on who my father might have been. If it wasn't dear old dad, it probably was Pat Deeny, the swarthy, loud mouthed, comic reading drunk who lived up the hill from where mom and dad were living when I was born. Or maybe it was the soldier with the pet monkey my mom used to tell me about. She'd laugh about how much the monkey liked me and would jump on my shoulder when ever it saw me. I wonder what dear old mom and the soldier were doing after they let the monkey loose on me. It's taken me a long time to learn to like monkeys.

Crow's breakfast

The crows had a nice breakfast of quiche this morning. They have a way of chirping and whistling that I interpret as meaning something like, "Hey... lookie here now!" The closest I came in a quick search to finding anything resembling this delightful chatter is called Crow: 72K wav file. If you want to give it a listen, it's near the top of the page . It comes at the end of a recording. Anyway, this particular conversation tells me they've found something in the Bird Park that's especially tasty. They really liked the quiche with it's greasy pie crust. I put it out this morning and it hadn't frozen by the time they arrived, so pickin was easy. They gobbled it in about a half an hour even though they looked up and scaned the sky in between bites. Death from above. They're experts on it. By the time the magpies showed up only crumbs were left. Too bad. I really like the magpies too. I first heard about them in stories my mother read to me, and ever since carried the impression they were magical but I never saw a live magpie until I moved to Nevada. Funny. I'd never thought of magpies as a desert bird but there's plenty of them around here. They are lovely, striking in fact in those black and white feathers. Real lookers.

You might be thinking that feeding quiche to crows is vulgar, a tasteless act of insolent wealth. I assure you, it's merely a matter of circumstantial good fortune on both our parts, the birds and mine. A shake of the glass and we change places with people and birds that are eyeing one another as breakfast instead of sharing a quiche. The whole bare dirt area outside the window is my Bird Park. There are two feeders about 50 feet apart hanging from the fence filled with black sunflower seeds. These are for the mid-sized birds. Then I scatter the ground with a variety of seeds on the ground for the rest. The little show out there that revolves through the day is great, low key entertainment.

I have to lean forward over the key board and look out the window to the left to see the area where this morning's feast took place. I keep a pair of binoculars near by for these special occasions. They are a pain in the ass to use but it's worth the effort just to see a crow's wonderful claws up close as they clutch a catch. I swear some of these fellows have a spread that's nearly equal to the reach of my hand. Then there's the beaks themselves... long as a finger, pointed and accurate, good for pecking out anything from eyes to bits of hamburger bun caught in mustard smeared crinkles of abandon wrappers. I have to stand, lean over the printer which sits in front of the window then twist to the left to get in position for the binoculars to work. Then I have to tilt them up a bit so that the magnified image floats into view. You'd think these glasses were complete crap if you didn't know the technique. But I've seen plenty through them, rattlesnakes, wild horses, unsuspecting people picking their nose while waiting at a San Francisco traffic light.

The desert, at last. Home again. What a relief to get back to its strange miles and miles opening in the round, it's pyramid hills and indifferent voices.

Happy New Year!

We're currently stuck in Oregon waiting out the weather. Mr. Lee's in a funk because of the gloomy skies and we're both restless and eager to get back home. It's impossible to get enough computer time here. But what the hell? A couple of days ago some friends were stranded in the mountains and slept in their car for 2 days because of the snow so waiting for this latest series of storms to pass is not such a big deal. In fact, tonight life is good. It's the first, fresh hours of 2004. Earlier this evening we finally managed to access a neighborhood wireless network and the Sci-Fi channel is playing ancient black and white episodes of Twilight Zone in the background. They're hilarious. In one, a young William Shatner, playing a distraught husband just out of the mental hospital, tries to convince his wife there's a monster (a guy in a fuzzy monkey suit) on the airplane's wing. In another an old man cries out, "There's magic in the world. I know there is". What I especially savor about all this is that not a second has passed in geologic time. That comforts me.