Island of the Spammed

Right before I left for Hilo, thank- fully, thank- fully, my luggage arrived. I'd just gone up to drop off my sketchpads and books when Akiko called up to me and told me that the airline had telephoned, and my luggage was on the way. The fact that I'd lose more time waiting for its delivery was largely eclipsed by a feeling of relief. I wasn’t gonna have to shop for 2 weeks worth of laundry, and my guitar had been extracted from Ivan's vodka saturated hands.

While I waited, I unpacked my carry-on bag. I didn't have much in it, and there seemed to be little need to put anything away. I was wearing my one change of clothes. Otherwise, I had my bathroom stuff, laptop and a small stack of books. Ever the optimist when it comes to these matters, I’d actually thought I might read a lot of 'em, Looking at how much time I’d already lost and remembering how I’d hauled the bag back through all those airport terminals, the stupidity of what I'd chosen to pack began to sink in. Ah well...

I picked up Infinite Jest and settled into read. I was only about 5 minutes into it when I heard a motor and a then a car door. Hopeful, I walked toward the main complex, where a short, stout Hawaiian guy, maybe 45 years old, was unloading my shit from inside a minivan. We said hello, and I went about signing a release form. (Seemed a little lax as far as liability measures went—I mean, I coulda been anybody.)

He looked around at the courtyard and said, "Is this place new?"

"You know, I'm not sure. I just got here."

"You're on vacation?"

"A working vacation."

He nodded, looked around some more, then said, "So how is this place?"

I said it was cool.

He offered to help me carry my luggage over to my room. I pictured us bumbling through the brush with my large duffel bag and guitar case. I smiled. This guy didn’t know what he would’ve been getting himself into. I told him I’d get it OK, thanked him and said goodbye.

As I extended the duffel bag’s handle and rolled it up toward the trail entrance, I heard the guy shut the hatchback. Then I heard Akiko saying hello to him.

"You've made someone very happy. He's been very worried about his guitar.” I smiled and nodded back at them over my shoulder. She was right.

As I moved away, I could still hear Akiko happily chatting away w/ the guy. The flow of conversation was so easy. At first, I thought they knew each other, but then I noticed they were talking about very basic matters: where the guy lived, how long Akiko's place had been here, what it was like to run a bed & breakfast, etc.

I was being offered a first hand view of some of Akiko's truly remarkable traits: the ease w/ which she drew people out, always w/ an air of respect and warmth, and the way in which she used her knowledge of the area to raise matters the guy would know about and in which he'd be interested. She is truly gifted in these things, and I felt a strong admiration for her at that moment.

There was no time to unpack my shit. It was getting late. I threw the bag up by the bed, slid the guitar over into 1 corner and headed out to my car. Akiko and the delivery man were still talking. I waved at them, hopped in my car and got the fuck outta there.

So to Dampe Hilo Childe Steve Forceman, P.I. came. Along the way I got to actually see the landscape I'd been driving through the night before. It was different from what I'd pictured. Behind me, I couldn't see much of the mountainous area I'd entered after I overshot Akiko's. There was a discernible slope, but my view was blocked by intermittent trees and walls of earth to the left and right, about 8-10' tall and riddled with tree roots and small plants. Here and there, the road appeared to have been hacked right through the hills. There are lush, damp trees, and several side roads bear signs that direct you toward waterfalls. The area is famous for a preponderance of incredible waterfalls. It oughta be. (More about them later.)

As you approach Hilo, and the horizon opens. Between Akiko’s place and Hilo, Highway 19 follows the ocean. The proximity of road to water varies, but it's never great. Outside of town, you're pretty high up, and the road is fairly narrow, so the angle of view is steep. There are several scenic viewpoints—though you're never given a lot of warning that they are coming up. The pulls-offs are short, and the flow of traffic is brisk. It's easy to miss yr. shot, which is unfortunate, because the views are incredible. And from one stop to the next, the vistas are always different. The land and the ocean both seem to change, constantly, in a way that's reminiscent of the protean terrain around the lava flow.


One of the most glorious views of all comes at you when you hit the outskirts of the city: Hilo Bay. In rain or in the sun, it is equally striking. To fully experience it, you have to approach it from the north. There are several places to pull off here, because it is so beautiful, and even seen from behind the wheel of the car, it's magnificent. You're high up, just before the road runs dramatically back down into town. It's hazy, but not unclear—ethereal—and as you descend, Hilo gradually becomes real.

Downtown Hilo is well populated, but not crowded. The main street, Kamehameha Avenue, briefly splits off from Highway 19 and then runs parallel to it. Here, the highway separates it from the beachfront. Again, I was reminded of some of the quiet lakeside towns in northern Michigan, with whitewashed buildings that seem to date back to the 40s or 50s. It's like a small town from the movies. There are lots of beautiful old historic buildings both on Kamehameha itself, and on the northern streets that intersect it. Scattered through the downtown area are some fine dining establishments, some art galleries and a couple of museums—including the very classily-run Pacific Tsunami Museum, which, itself, survived two tsunamis—in 1946 and 1990. Built in 1930, (fortunately, in concrete,) it was originally the First Hawaiian Bank Building.

The museum is just one example of the fine job the people of Hilo have done in maintaining some of the older buildings, most of which date from the first two decades of the 20th century. Like the Museum, many structures have been converted to a different use. Others, like the Palace Theater continue to serve their original function. It was built in 1925 and is in near-vintage shape after a restoration begun in 1990. It has this large, striking, Art Deco style lobby, wherein you can buy popcorn before enjoying a flick—frequently, but not always, something sorta indie or foreign, but prob. not too out there.

Not that Hilo’s all Ivory Towers and points of historic interest. A good part of the city’s spirit is quite down-to-earth. You’ll often run across a kind of humor here that's less polite, and a good deal more blunt. Not that anyone was ever anything other than cool when I dealt with 'em. (Minus the Burger King staff, but I already mentioned that.) There are some great diners in Hilo that serve traditional, Spam-laced Hawaiian food. (My Favorite is Ken’s House of Pancakes.) And I don't mean that shit you get on the internet about penis enlargement, cheap real estate, et. al. I mean the, uh, meat. The Great Mystery Meat. Spam.

Actually what it tends to breakdown to is spam-accented versions of some of your favorite diner classics. Do ya like ham n' eggs? How 'bout Spam n' eggs??? With ham! Now you're really livin'!!! (That is, until 5 minutes from now, when yr. heart explodes.) Many of the menu items mix Spam w/ one or two other non-hybridized meats and, usually, w/ eggs as well. And then, frequently, all of this is topped w/ beef gravy and served w/ mashed potatoes. It's insane. Not at all what I was expecting as far as Hawaiian food goes.

Poi does exist, but wasn't nearly as ubiquitous as Brother Spam. And I never saw a whole roasted pig the whole time I was there, nor luaus, 'tho I saw plenty of what I'm told are the contemporary equivalent: family cook outs in parking lots & local parks. Usually w/ lawn chairs, gas or charcoal grills, music, laughter. I'm not sure about the scholarly notion of cultural continuity in this analysis, but what the fuck?

In Hilo, there are stores of all kinds for the avid shopper. There are coffee shops—all of which seemed to have internet access—and at least one gallery/performance space, probably connected w/ the U of Hawaii at Hilo crowd, given its sorta young sorta hip air. It took me back to my youth: xeroxed leaflets announcing upcoming gigs by local bands, theater productions, etc.

Past downtown Hilo, 19 becomes the busy sort of highway you find on the outskirts of most small-medium cities, w/ heavy traffic rolling past gas stations, strip malls and convenience stores. (A special salute to the Wiki Wiki party store, but more about that fine establishment later.) Before long, you hit that major intersection w/ Highway 11, right in front of the airport. If you continue past 11, Highway 19 becomes Kalanianaole Avenue. Gradually the traffic falls off, and the road begins to have a more suburban aspect, then soon, a more rural one.

If you make the turn onto 11, the traffic becomes even heavier, you pick up an extra lane on each side, and larger stores start popping up—most connected by a network of parking lots. If you aren't adverse to speed bumps, you can cruise past Subway, KTA, Little Caesar's, an Aloha gas station or two—all w/o going back onto the highway. 'Course there's different shit on each side of the road, so if you wanna move from this KTA complex over to the largest parking lot of all, you gotta cross 11. Over there are the really big stores—Office Max, a department store or 2, and most prominent of all, one ominous, gargantuan Wal-Mart… Bwah hah hah hah….

Walkin' Boots

OK so it's been a long time blah blah. But I had real, real good excuses like blah blah blah. I'll be a good boy and update more often blah blah.

In the interest of actually gettin' an entry up here--and in the interest of not boring the pants offa you--(not that you're not sooper sexy--I didn't mean to say that) I'll spare you alla that crap and just get right back to my epic Hawaiian adventure.

Without further ado then: you may remember that in the strange land of Hilo, I was about to go aquesting for some boots. With these, I would challenge the mighty lava fields. And so I made final preparations for my boot-seekin' expedition--and points beyond. Boyoboy, here we go...

So breakfast outta the way, I went in search of a shower. I needed it after stewing in my own juices for like the past 36+ hours. What's more, my muscles were sore & only mostly responsive. Akiko had asked if I'd want to take a shower the night before I'd told her yeah, in the morning. So when she saw me leaving the breakfast table, she asked me to wait a moment outside, and then she'd show me how to turn on the water heater.

I was impressed w/ this bit of conscientiousness. Still, while I'm all for environmental sensitivity. I am unfortunately a crass pig who likes a shower—usually, but not always, daily. (Forgive me! Mother Gaia. Cross not thy legs before mine loving ramrod!) And in terms of showering, this water heater biz had a real downside. To wit, if you turn a cold water heater on, it's prob. gonna take a while before the water's even warm. You end up w/ 2 choices—let the water run for quite a while so that it actually gets a little warm, or just don't bother w/ the fucking heater at all. I generally went w/ the second option. I just didn't have the time to wait around and did respect the ol’ environment enough not to waste alla that water for such a stupid reason. Anyway, I can’t say my showers weren’t brisk n’ refreshing!

It felt good to be clean. Breakfast had been good, but not heavy, and the coffee was starting to kick in. I felt alert—even exhilarated at the thought of what might lie ahead. I also felt tense. I really had been looking forward to a little peace—some room for my thoughts and me. But now, aside from the job I’d already taken, I was being contracted as a chauffer for a 16 year old German boy, and I had signed on for a hike to see the lava. It was a lot to take in.

I didn't have a lot of time, but went & grabbed a sketchpad, some oil crayons and Infinite Jest, which I was still reading at the time. Then I went and sat in one of the lawn chairs in front of the loft building. It was shady there. I didn't know whether I'd read or sketch, but I needed to figure my situation out, and the most expedient way for me to do that is often to think about something completely unrelated to the matter at hand. Ida know. Maybe it's got something to do w/ distracting my conscious mind so my unconscious mind can go to work, making the necessary leaps to get me where I need to go w/o all the attendant horseshit.

I ended up thinking of the mountains, black and looming, just the way I'd seen them in the rain last night. I saw the charcoal colored clouds around them. I started drawing this shit to the best of my ability (which is minimal, by the way). I was really just working in very simple shapes and colors—blacks and grays, hard angles. Pretty abstract, but depicting something obvious—kinda sorta primitive in an unselfconscious way.

I was pretty far into it when Stefan appeared at my shoulder. I hadn't noticed his approach. Smiling, he gave a girly little hop, touched my shoulder and said, "Ah, very nice. It is the mountains right?"

Holmesian powers of deduction. Add that to his dossier. It was clear he'd come to settle things. He broke out the map the rangers had given him, and we studied it, seeking a meeting place. It began to feel like we were young boys plotting some sorta imaginary covert military operation.

I'd mentioned that I was interested in checking out a lava tube earlier, so Stefan suggested that we meet at the entrance to Thurston Lava Tube—a name that conjured Jim Backus drinking outta a coconut shell in my mind. The opening was near the head of one of the many trails that ran through the park. Truth be told, one of my books, Hawaii—The Big Island Revealed, had made this tube sound pretty lame—overly domesticized and cosmeticized & some such other Johnny Cochran type shit. It mentioned some other tubes that were more off the beaten track—the best and rawest of which wasn't technically open to the public.

It would take many tries before I'd actually find the fucking thing, but I did end up hiking through it later. And it was badass. In the meantime though, Thurston Lava Tube seemed like as good a place to meet as any—even if I didn’t end up checking it out. So I said that would be fine.

We set a time. He suggested I head up at least an hour early so I’d have time to check out Crater Rim Drive. I asked him for a more specific suggestion.

"Well, I'm not sure how to answer. If you're like me, you could spend all day just driving around the crater and never finishing. I've been there several times & still haven't seen it all. I just kept pulling off and looking, and it kept changing. It's incredible."

It sounded like a good idea. He said Niko hadn't seemed too big on it before, but, "Maybe if he's not w/ his father. You know how young boys are." It was pretty clear that he was not only encouraging me to check out Crater Rim Drive, but also encouraging me to encourage Niko to check it out. Add unsubtly subtle wussy coercion to his dossier as well. Swell.

I said OK.

"Good, good!" He cut short his sprightly hopping this time to call Niko over, and w/ a German loan word here & there, we settled on a mid-afternoon departure for Niko and me.

Then I was left to myself again, but there was no time left for drawing. I didn't have much in the way of hiking supplies. Stefan told me that the sneakers I'd been planning on wearing weren't the best choice for footwear for this outing. We didn't know how far we'd have to go to find the lava, but it would be a couple of miles at least. What's more, lava fields are rough terrain. The ground breaks off in jagged pieces, and there are sudden and irregular slopes, meaning you might lose your step here and there.

Stefan was also concerned about the heat of the flowing lava. It would be right there—not far beneath you. Only dried layers of the same shit would be separating you from it. The insulation these would provide wouldn't be great, so the ground could get pretty fuckin' hot. I felt that Stefan was probably being a bit overcautious here, but figured what the fuck? I'd hiked some as a kid, but that had been nearly 20 years ago. And even then, I'd never hiked under such peculiar circumstances.

I’d made vague resolutions to try several things while I was there—most notably, I wanted to try n’ fuck one of those really dangerous jellyfish, ‘cuz they’re all mooshy and it’d be sorta like fuckin’ a person of either sex maybe except for the venom and butt that would just make things exciting—y’know?—it’d give things an edge. Another activity I’d considered was hiking, so I had done what any sensible person does when she/he is thinkin’ about doin’ something rad like hiking over lava: I’d skimmed a coupla books I was too cheap to buy at the bookstore. And like they all concurred that you should wear “sturdy boots” when you hiked. That’s always how they put it: “sturdy boots.” And said phrase was now echoing in my mind in a way that was reminiscent of a scene in a really bad old movie in which some character remembers some important thing somebody else said some time or something. Sturdy boots.

Considering all of this, I figured I'd follow Stefan's advice. I knew, also, that I would need some water and probably some less perishable food to keep me going. The books suggested surplus amounts of both, in case you became lost. It was not an idea I liked to consider, but there it was. Darkness would allow better visibility, as far as lava went, so we'd decided to finish our hike after dusk. Given the treacherousness of the ground we'd be covering, a flashlight seemed like a necessity.

It was after 10 a.m. Getting to & from Hilo would take a little time. Assembling all the shit I'd need would take some more. I was reasonably full, but I'd still need some lunch before we left. That wouldn't leave me w/ a lotta time for poking around after this Wendell. I wasn't sure when we'd be done w/ the hike or how beat I'd be afterwards. But given how depleted I was already feeling, it seemed possible that I wouldn't be up to working later.

Like I said before, I was planning on squeezing in some personal time while I was there, but I was here, after all, on a job. Steve Forceman, P.I. gotta eat, besides which, I wasn't looking to piss off a buncha thugs, and common sense, as well as some digging I had done before leaving suggested that Tony Castrato might move in areas that lay a little south of the law. That was one reason why I hadn't been thrilled about taking the job in the first place. I’d should’ve told the fucker I was all booked up and left it at that, but concern for my own neck had led me to bend my sense of professional ethics in that way already. Well that, and a perverse sense of curiosity as well. What really went on w/ these guys?

Still, aside from my desire to stay alive, I didn't want to further compromise my ethics by blowing off a job. I wasn't sure I wanted to or could afford to write off a whole day, but I'd already signed on for this Prussian Expedition in search of the Earth’s Molten Heart. (Germans are always getting carried away w/ these operatic ideas.) And truth be told, I wanted to see the lava. It was unlikely that a better opportunity would present itself. So reluctantly, I decided that aside from looking around while I was buying shit in Hilo, I was gonna let Wendell go for the moment. I resolved to do nothing but hunt tomorrow, but today, I was lava bound.

Iowa? Death? What's the Difference?

I ain't dead yet. Maybe.


I'm gonna write here again real soon. I think.


(I'd apologize for the delays, but I don't have energy to spend on apologizing to someone who doesn't exist and wouldn't give a shit if he/she did. Probably.)



Forceman out...

The Transfiguaration of Dr. David Burns

I'm sure you've all been wondering why I haven't been updating. ('Cuz I know that's really, really important to you.) See, you're just getting spoiled 'cuz I was on a roll there for a while there, crankin' out entries like there was no tomorrow. (Come to think of it, there wasn't a tomorrow, which means we aren't here, I guess.)


I had a couple of situations come up. The first was a half-biz/half pleasure trip to NYC, which maybe I'll get into later. ('Tho I don't wanna take away from my trip to Hawaii... two fucking years ago. So we'll see.) The other, well, is more bittersweet...

Welp. The day is finally here. After 11 years in the same ancient, crumbling building in the south Loop, I am moving my office.

I got no choice, as Robert DeNiro mooed in Raging Bull. (‘Tho he was talkin’ ‘bout the prospect of eating an overcooked steak.) The building will be demolished some time later this year. Rather considerately, my landlords have made me aware of this fact and requested that I vacate the premises before I meet w/ a wrecking ball.

Wrecking ball, how do you do?

Why Steve Forceman, P.I.! I’ve heard so much about you…

SMASH!

Dreadfully sorry about pulverizing your spine there!

Gurgle… Gleeargh!… Think nothin’ of it…

SMASH!

To be fair, my landlords are sorta like me n’ Bob DeNiro: they got no choice. It’s a situation you find all over the South Loop. Lead paint lurks. Structural instability looms large. This building has so many problems that rehabbing it would be a real labor of love. And love doesn’t make the world go ‘round. Money does. Landlord gotta eat too.

It’s sad. I have a lot of memories of the shit that’s happened in the building. Most of them are mundane—like that time the I brought a strange man up here for a nooner, and he turned out to be a large chinchilla—but y’know, that’s the stuff that really haunts you sometimes.

Truth be told ‘tho, I’ve know this was coming for such a long time that I can’t claim to be too aggrieved. For the most part, I’ve made my peace and am ready to relocate my place of business in the historic Pittsfield building—once, briefly, the tallest building in the world. My new office looks out on this bizarre art deco nightmare of an atrium. Most of my neighbors are jewelers or hair stylists. It’s got some character.

Still, while I’ve more or less accepted the change, I’m pissed off about all of the time I lost in moving. The whole process capsized whatever order I had established in my life. It’s set me back in my work and in various personal areas.

Waaah! Boo hoo! I know. Get over it. But the chaos is there, and it’s gotta be dealt with. And fortunately, I know exactly how to deal w/ it, ‘cuz I learned some relevant nifty tricks the last time I moved my office, which was located in this crappy building in Wicker Park.

In that case, I sought a change of scenery, but if I’d known where the move would initially lead me, I prob. woulda hesitated. It took me months to re-establish some sorta order in my life. But see, it all worked out OK, and in fact, I became a better & stronger person, entirely ready to and capable of dealing w/ this sorta shit.

And here’s how: Virtually everyone who encountered my personal chaos helped me out by pointing out how irrational it was for me to allow it to get to me.

See, around that time, a certain cross-section of my circle of acquaintances—the ones who tell you about every book, CD and movie ever profiled on NPR, but rarely read, listen to or go see any of ‘em, ‘cuz, like, who has that kinda time?—well alla them were into this book called Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by this genius named Mr. Burns. Woops! I mean Doctor Burns. Sorry!

If, say, you are like me and don’t really listen to NPR too much because you’ve always got music playing, or if by some other bitter set of circumstances, the Dr. Burns/ NPR boat sailed before you cleared the gangway—you might want to know something before you run out and buy Feeling Good: the book is less hip now. Still, it’s highly respected, I guess, and everyone I know who’s in therapy sez his/her shrink swears by it to some degree as part, if not all, of a therapeutic approach.

Now. I’m gonna pause for a moment to say that if you already know allllll about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—and you prob. do, since like everyone I know but me is in therapy, and alllllllllllll of their shrinks dig the book, as I said—you can skip the next coupla paragraphs. If ya don’t, and ya care, here is my succinct, if maybe grossly oversimplified summary of the principles of CBT: you think stuff, which leads you to have feelings. (Not the other way around.) You think, apparently, in words, and a lotta the ones you direct toward yourself are mean n’ nasty and lead you to have, as they said in the 60s, “hang-ups,” which, as they said in the 60s, can be a “bummer.” Like maybe you say to yourself: “I am a big smelly bowel movement. I suck.”

Now the next precept of CBT is that these mean, nasty thoughts are irrational, so if you can just find the errors in their logic, you can charge ‘em like some Socratic Rambo—or would that be a Ramboian Socrates?—and shoot ‘em w/ yr. Bop Gun. Take that! BUDDA-BUDDA-BUDDA!!!: “I am not a big smelly BM, ‘cuz logic dictates that shit is not sentient, and I am—sentient, I mean—and therefore I can’t be shit. And plus I don’t stink. I know ‘cuz I sniff myself a lot to be sure, and I smell just like rosewater and the crystal clear saliva of Lindsay Lohan after a night of only light drinking. And but I also don’t suck. I blow.”

Ha! Thus CBT slays BM!

I’m sure you can all see what an incredibly powerful tool this is! Just don’t start entertaining notions (illogical ones, no doubt) that you seem to feel before you think, or that at the very least, you think too fast and in too high of a volume to pluck alla the nasty thoughts from whatever personal cyclone you may be weathering so that you can quarantine ‘em and go at ‘em w/ both boors: BOOM POW!

And refrain from telling yr. shrink, as one of my friends did, that he often seemed to think in images or sounds, ‘cuz if you do, even if you are as generally honest as he is, yr. shrink may brand you uncooperative, (as did his,) and then continue to take yr. money while doing nothing but telling you what a big smelly BM you are. Woops! We’ve come full circle. OK, so don’t do that…

Anyhoo, if you follow the rules, yr. naughty thoughts, (which, BTW, can be classified in various ways, like f’rinstance, “all-or-nothing thinking” or something like that, thus allowing you to select the appropriate weapon—auto, or semi-auto, recoilless, w/ a silencer, etc. Then you know what kinda glock to use in ushering yr. irrational thoughts into the Great Beyond.) Then you will be happy. Period. It’s that easy!

Whasssat you say? You already do that—I mean, argue w/ yr. mental demons and irrational thoughts? That you thought that that was just a normal method used by human beings for prob. pretty much forever to deal w/ their shit. And that sometimes it works, but that at other times, it just don’t. And that no matter how much you tell yourself, everything is cool, you sorta still feel like everything sorta sucks. Like, you can see how irrational yr. thoughts are, but somehow that just isn’t making yr. bad feelings go away? Well, are you in therapy? Maybe you’re just a little clumsy, and need a little professional help… Woops! Did my words make you feel bad?

So see, all my friends who’d read or been force fed Dr. Burns tried to help me see how I didn’t need to get stressed out by the time I’d lost in moving. From a CBT perspective, which is said to be the most effective method of psychotherapy available, BTW, an understanding of how irrational this pattern of thinking is should allow me to dispel it and replace it w/ a healthier pattern, e.g., “I am just as valid and entitled as everyone else and so deserve a newer spiffier office. And plus I will work more effectively in a new place cuz it won’t have all the pain-in-the-ass probs. my current office has. And I’ll be the best lil’ P.I., (not to mention the best lil’ human being) I can be!” And various other such Stewart Smalley-isms.

And then everything shoulda been hunky dory. Except it wasn’t. Feeling Good was not good enough. (Not for me & my Bobby McGee, anywaze. Actually I can’t speak for my Bobby McGhee. He dropped some bad ‘cid back in ’73, causing him to believe that I had a big donkey dick w/ which I wanted to fuck him—repeatedly. ‘Matter of fact, I did wanna fuck him—repeatedly. His smelly hippy flat-assed Spin Doctor-lookin’ self was just too enticing, like clouds gilt by sunlight and CO2.

But my dick’s teeny tiny. ‘Matter of fact, that’s where Roger Waters got some of the lyrics to “Comfortably Numb.” He overheard me soliciting the feral, semiconscious lovemaking of my Bobby McGhee, thusly:

“It’s OK. You may feel my little pin dick. There’ll be no more pain, dear. But you may feel start to spurt. IIIII-high have begun to comfortably come. Prematurely. In my BVDs. Woops. That’s embarrassing.”

Welp, Bobby tol’ me to fuck off. I said I already sorta had. He didn’t find that funny, pushed right past me, and drove off in our yak-smellin’ VW bus, leaving me stranded at the post-Dead show tail-gater in Topeka.

I never saw him again, nor heard him sing the blues. And to top it all off, Roger Waters steals my amorous poetry and makes, like, zillions of dollars w/ it. (Granted, he changed the words a little, but the, uh, thrust was still there.) And I never saw dime one. I tried to get ahold of him dozens of times, but Mr. Hollywood wouldn’t return my calls, natch. And like I’m gonna be able to afford a lawyer who can so much as scratch that impenetrable Wall Rogers and other celebs like him have around ‘em. Ha!

OK, so I guess I lied. I am not a better & stronger person, nor am I more capable of dealing w/ adversity thanks to Dr. Burns’s wisdom. Despite all of the Socratic cunning I’ve managed to muster, the amount of time I’ve lost in moving still pisses me off. There were some things I would’ve liked to’ve accomplished before the first month of 2007 was over. Not that any them were that urgent, but y’know there’s that psychological factor that travels w/ the passing of a calendar year.

Stupid to let your self be affected by something so arbitrary, but it does make you aware… Dust in the wind, baby. Time is seriously fucking limited. You don’t have much of it in the narrow span that is yr. life—and all that Percy Bysshe Shelley and/or Pink Floyd jazz. And what are doing w/ yr. time? Haha! You’re reading this blog! Mmmf snicker…

I know all you Eastern and quasi-wannabe-Eastern hippie types w/ yr. inscrutable wisdom would say that one gets the most from life when one accepts time, appreciates the present, doesn’t itemize it and worry over its passage into the past, doesn’t consider the ever-dwindling future.

And then you all go smoke yr. grain-fed, free range, kosher cow’s turd cigarettes. (With no additives, by the way, thus insuring the presence of lotsa little dead bugs n’ stuff inside yr. doobie & making it taste far less good than the brand name dung cigarettes that are derived from anemic, factory bound cows, who are fed nothing but other cows (who’ve become too sick to shit) and laxatives to make ‘em shit a lot (thus makin’ ‘em more productive n’ shit) into a trough alla time in which third world laborers are asked to stand, not just knee-deep in it, as it were, and work 23.78 hour long days @ 3 cents/hr., rolling scat into spliffs, w/ no health care, no day care, (which is fine w/ them, because their kids are workin’ right alongside ‘em—just one big happy family as the malapro-aphorism goes—as they must, ‘cuz they all owe their souls and the souls of 7 times 7 generations to the Company Store,) all of ‘em prone to diseases like typhus, bubonic plague, gout, cholera, carpal tunnel syndrome, the bends, the vapors, and anal warts, from working in such unsanitary conditions—all so you can have yr. Camel-Dung Lights, you wretched hippie-crite!)

OK, but this current move: Even when I am starting to make some headway, and it looks like I’ll be able to get back to biz as usual, unforeseen shit keeps coming up. So that what efforts I have made to establish order keep dissipatin’ like steam in the bathroom after a shower, when it’s a really cold day, and yr. willy’s all shriveled up, so you fondle it gently w/ yr. warm hand, snugly cupped, as you watch the condensation fade from the bathroom mirror, and you can see it, yr. Willy, teeny tiny and glistening w/ moisture, and you get all hot thinkin’ about what a fox you are, and how even you’d like to knock a piece of you off, but then you’d be missing a piece of yourself, & that’d prob. hurt, and like hook-handed Moulty of the 60s garage band The Barbarians, you’d only be able to dream of being “The Complete Man” thereafter. Whatta bummer.

Anyway, here I am, installed in my new office. And it sure is swell. It’s like paradise. Amidst the ceiling beams, cherubs do caper emitting trills, achingly beautiful, from reed flutes—heavenly airs that sound suspiciously like the main riff from “Just the Way You Are” by Billy Joel. Sunlight gathers in placid golden pools, like fresh urine in the navel of the Elder Beauty Goddess, a fat, clapped-out liver-spotted skank, after you’ve rained yr. love down upon her. (You stand to one side, sneering w/ exaltation—yes, sneering w/ exaltation—it’s possible—picture 2004 Cubs disappointment Corey Patterson just after he’s hit a game-winning “dinger”—as you zip up. And you wonder after the meaning of it all. Why must you piss on Beauty to show yr. love for her? What does that say about Beauty, you, humanity? And why does Beauty have to wear a visor turned backwards? Why must she be such a trend-hopper? (And the trends of several years ago at that?)

But my new place: whatta heaven! It’s like Valhalla minus the obnoxious, drunken Vikings, whoring and feasting and brawling around the clock, like the denizens of some Elysian frat house. (Talk about the Greek system! Hyuk hyuk hyuk!!! ) (And yeah, I know that I’m mixing mythologies here, but Greek, Norse. Whassa difference?) Except Vikings are sorta the raison d’eteet of Valhalla, so w/o them, it’d be kinda like Vegas w/o gambling or Flint, Michigan w/o urban decay, & like, what the hell would that be like? A vacuum? A quantum singularity? As cool of a place as a singularity might be to visit, Ida think I’d wanna live there. And I think my new office is prob. nicer than that. Even ‘tho I’m not gonna be living here. (Unless something really bad happens.)

Nevertheless, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 37 years on this earth, it’s that even Valhalla must be unpacked. And here’s one of those ironies that are just more pungent than a bad yeast infection: I’m unpacking my books, and sure enough, right beneath Infinite Jest, is a copy of Feeling Good. Can’t believe I actually let some asshole talk me into buying it. Or maybe some NPR-spawned CBT acolyte just palmed the fucker off on me, ‘cuz they were sure it was gonna fix their life and so, like, why couldn’t it fix mine as well? After all, my problems couldn’t be nearly as complex and oppressive as theirs, right?

Everybody’s an armchair detective. They all look at yr. data—don’t even need all of it—just like that cokehead fuck Sherlock Holmes. They observe and then solve you. That’s if you get their attention. AND yr. problems aren’t too depressing. They’re not gonna have much to tell ya if yr. problems are like, say, cancer or something. I hurl my copy of Feeling Good at the wall, its pages blousing out like the sails of some defunct armada. I’d run it through my shredder, if it wouldn’t take too much effort to rip out the pages.

Fuck you, Dr. Burns, and all the people you’ve brainwashed. Things aren’t always that simple, pal.

And fuck you too, David Foster Wallace, and that stupid sexy doo-rag you’re wearing on the back of my paperback Infinite Jest. I may envy yr. success and talent in writing—2 things I will never have, ‘tho I scrawl n’ type away. I wrote oodles and oodles of tons of pages yesterday, allowing emotional and cerebral chaos to further swallow me up. (Not to mention the barbiturates I swallowed.)

Go on chaos! Carry me away. But of course, you can’t always count on chaos—that being its raison d’eteet, after all.

Anyhoo… David Foster Wallace. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, sweetie—or sweaty—or whatever. What I envy you for is not yr. talent n’ success. Nope. I envy you for how fucking hot you obviously are, given the doo-rag-pic. I long to pull the damp rag from thine head, to watch thine oily, mottled tresses stream down thine be-stubbled throat. The apple there, left by Eve, I shall lick. Thy nutsack I shall clutch, gently stroking its loose skin, feeling it tighten in my hand—as ‘tho it had a life of its own—feeling its heaviness and heat. It is the House of thine Paternity.

Ah! But if only I could engulf those seeds w/ my body—becoming larger, until a great brood of lovelies, each w/ his—for there shall be no freakish she-children here!—own doo-rag—some green, some checked red, some bearing the ancient glyphs of long-forgotten civilizations, some portraying games of hangman, and some depicting terribly arousing erotic matter.

Tainted by my own imperfections, their Wallace blood will, nevertheless, cause them to rise up and march across the wounded earth to enact their destiny. And yours.

Meanwhile I’ll finish unpacking.

The Greek Way to the Middle Way to Enlightenment

At some point, Stefan's son showed up. He was a pretty kid w/ thoughtful brown eyes, blond hair and a thin, stubbly growth above his upper lip. His speech was slow and quiet, probably in part because his grasp of English was less firm than his father's. I'd studied German in high school and college, so I said some simple stuff to him. ("How are you," "Whassup!" and "In terms of semiotic film criticism, do you believe that the individual frames of a motion picture serve an analogous function to that of the letters found in a specific word, the words found in a specific sentence, or neither?")

He became more animated and started enthusiastically spouting all kindsa shit auf Deutsch, and pretty soon I understood how he must've been feeling since he reached the U.S., 'cuz I was virtually lost. My mind would latch onto an individual word, and that word would be long gone already. It was even more confusing than listening to someone speaking in a language you don't understand at all. Then you don’t feel obliged to sort anything out. You can just kinda listen, fascinated by the unfamiliar sounds. Or, at the very least, you can just ignore them.

When he found out I wrote fiction, the kid went really ape shit, furiously spewing out Teutonic consonants, as though he were a living Howitzer. Apparently, he was writing a novel of his own, and he was now bombarding me with a complex plot summary.

By this time, my eyes were bulging, and my mind had assumed the form of sputtering static on an unused broadcasting frequency. In that state I was surprised to find that I could understand enough German to get that Stefan was telling him to slow down and be a little more realistic. I obviously wasn't understanding alla that.

And it might be worth making a somewhat judgmental observation here: Stefan often assumed this kind of fussy, scolding tone when he dealt w/ Niko. He was constantly correcting the kid, pointing things out to him, and becoming impatient w/ his lack of interest in some things that a kid very well might find boring. I never saw him become openly angry w/ Niko, and his comments were rarely outright criticisms, but they were, uh, patronizing. It led me to suspect that the kid wasn't just soft-spoken because of a language gap or general shyness—‘tho I do think these were contributing factors. In part, I began to think was that he just kept his mouth shut around his dad to avoid further bitching and roundabout brow beating.

But maybe that's just the way I saw it.

So conversation drifts into Stefan's uncertainty that, after setting up his camp, he's gonna have time to come pick up Niko for the evening hike to the lava. He seems philosophical, and we move onto subjects like jet lag and time zones. Germany's exactly 12 hours askew from Hawaii, so Stefan laughs off my sympathy by pointing out that at least they don't have to reset their watches like I do.

Niko is asking me questions about this novel I've been writing in between the professional obligations, like the investigation of cheating spouses, con schemes and the occasional missing person. And here's where Akiko dragged me into her Machiavellian plotting. Get this:

One minute, she's putzing around, washing dishes. The next, a #1 Best Divine Lightning Bolt whacks her on her enlightened head. I actually heard the crack of thunder, and I think that for just a moment, I saw Mighty Jove hisself lurking in a storm cloud over by the spice rack. And in case you're wondering about the mismatching of Eastern/Western living/dead religions (as opposed to a living dead religion—Wow, that'd be fucked up—dig if u will a picture of a church full of rottin' cadavers. Mulch mouthed undead priest oozing around on at the pulpit sez, "Let us now bow our heads... Let us now eat our heads..." N' at the end of the service, all the zombie folk turn to one another & say, "Pieces to you, brother/sister..." HAWHAWHAAW! I knew readin' all those EC comics was good for somethin'... And if you think I'm unfairly singling out Catholicism here, just consider all that Eucharist shit. They started it.)

But so in case you're wonderin' 'bout that, well see the thing is that Buddhism supposedly allows you to incorporate other religious shit into it. I think. Anyway aren't there 'sposed to be all these Hindu gods n' demons & shit that some Buddhists recognize. And plus like Richard Gere told Lisa Simpson she could observe Xmas even 'tho she wuzza Buddhist, on The Simpsons, I mean. And besides, you prob. don't know it, but Jove is a Buddhist. But he's nowhere near as devout of a Buddhist as Siddhartha Gautama was a devout Hellinocist (or whatever). Matter of fact, every incarnation of the Buddha since has been a devout Hellinocist.

Which is why that "noble" refugee and spiritual teacher the Dalai Lama is suspect. He wrote a book n' stuff, and by this time he's probably made music videos w/ Madonna, (who's using his higher profile and surplus public goodwill to try n' save her own foundering career—in matters of celebrity, one palsied hand washes the other—) and has his own game and reality shows and several movies wherein he's an action hero blowin' away a buncha Arabs n' drug dealers or a wacky, clumsy guy tripping over things or all naked takin' a shower while some insane killer guy spies on him through a peephole and maybe jerks off, which is fucked up on various levels and let's hope that the Dalai Lama has the good sense to avoid porn 'cuz that would really be getting outta hand, I'm sure you'd agree. And plus he's got a shoot 'em up action game w/ all sortsa levels—I keep gettin stuck on level 17, which pisses me off, 'cuz I've made about 1,009 calls to the hint line, & those 1-900 calls on my phone bill have pretty much broken me, and I know for a fact that the next level after level 17 is Nirvana.

And he's also gotta a theme park w/ golf courses and cool rides and a chain of fast food restaurants, which worst of all, serve Buddha Burgers—What the fuck is next?

And so you can see whatta sellout the Dalai Lama is, so no wonder he's renounced the Helliocism that every incarnation of the Buddha and of all the spiritual teachers of Buddhism have held in such reverence since the time of Siddhartha. And he didn't even renounce it as such—he really just kinda let it go, as in lapsing. Lazy, greedy bastard. Some Buddhist.

Anyhoo, so there was Jove sniggering behind one hand as he and his thunder cloud receded into the kitchen wall. And I seemed to be the only 1 who saw the fucker.

And thennnnn Akiko gets this light bulb over her head that apparently, also, only I can see. (And to those of you who feel that my imagery is getting a little incoherent, I might pose this question: What powers a light bulb, hmmm? Well? I'm waitin'...

That's right, you bastards, sheepishly kick the dirt, avoid my gaze: Electricity! And what's a lightning bolt? Don't know? Cat gotcha tongue? Electricity. So next time you open yr. mouth to "helpfully" point out a "mistake" I've made, save us all a lotta trouble by using that ugly maw to slurp on a big juicy starfish dick, and yes starfish have dicks and don't even ask me how I know unless you want to further compound yr. humiliation...)

And she turns her face toward me, and it's positively a-beam—and not w/ Enlightenment neither—& I'm not even sure what's coming, but instinct is leading me to shake my head, except I'm not shaking my head, because I seem to be paralyzed. (And I suspect the Hand of Jove mighta been at work there too—last time I slaughter a hog and roast little bits of its fat for that asshole.)

And she looks at me & sez, "Steve has a car!" She turns to Stefan. "Stefan, maybe Steve could take Niko up to the volcano, so he can get a look at it and then meet you somewhere near the lava flow! Then you wouldn't hafta worry about getting’ back to pick up Niko. How ‘bout them apples? Huh? How ‘bout ‘em?"

She's on a roll. Her head snaps around w/ a cartoon boinging noise. "And Steve!" she nearly shrieks, and I swear she's starting to froth at the mouth. Maybe this is divine enlightenment after all. Or insanity. Or rabies. "I'm sure you'd like to see the lava too!"

Ha! It's a win-win scenario! Everyone profits! Except for humble Akiko who has to be content w/ the halo around her head. (Not to mention her feelings of absolute power.)

And except for me, because while I really did want to see the lava, I was still whacked from yesterday's odyssey. My plans for the day had been something along the lines of sitting on a beach somewhere and maybe reading a book. Then maybe I'd check out Hilo, do a little relaxed lookin' around after this Wendell fellow, maybe get some food and a drink or two before, etc. And now I was being drafted for service in the German Army. (And hey, since when do we allow these fuckers to conscript people anyway? I thought we were gonna keep 'em under lock and key for a few more decades or so until we were sure that weren't gonna fuck the whole world up again.)

(Come to think of it, and I don't mean to be insensitive here, but the word Axis was comin' to mind amidst all these German and Japanese people and their plots. All I needed was some Italian to come along and confirm the whole thing. And then it occurred to me that the guy I was workin' for was Italian. Fuck I really was in trouble.

Ha ha, but no, really, Apologies to persons of Axis-power-descent.)

"Yeah, I'd like to see the lava..." A “but” was comin' here. (Which I'm having trouble picturing—a butt cummin’—but whatever.) Buuuutttt Akiko weaved w/ the skill and grace of Rumble in the Jungle-era Ali.

"Then you can make plans to take Niko up to meet Stefan, and in the meantime, he can go set up his campsite!"

And I woulda said, "Get bent," or at least, "Uh, I'm kinda tired from the trip. Sorry." But noooo.... I tell myself I was too frazzled to argue or something like that, but the truth is that Akiko's eyes started makin' these throbbing circles like the ones that cobra's eyes made in that cartoon of Riki-tiki-tavi. (Tell me that shit wasn't scary. And BTW, they got mongeese all over the Big Island, but we’ll get to that later.) And I got all limp. And flaccid. And well, you get the picture.

I was even offered another out that I did not take:

Stefan seemed uncertain, maybe a little regretful that it'd come to this, "Only if you want to do this," he says. But he sounds like he's expecting me to do it—that what's really being said here is something along the lines, "Ach, dude, I'm really sorry you have to do this, but hey thanks for responding to that pistol of guilt n' obligation that’s bein’ held to yr. head!"

No, I'd like to say that I'd asserted myself, or even that I assented outta the goodness of my heart, (Which I hope is partially true. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between yr. own possible kindness & yr. own possible acquiescence.) I'd even like to say that I went along because I wanted to see the lava, and although I'd been planning on resting some today & maybe hitting the lava somewhere down the road, it seemed like a good opportunity to travel w/ someone who knew more about this lava-hunting jazz than I did. But I can't be sure. And I guess it doesn't matter at this point. For whatever reason, with both eagerness & reservation, I agreed to deliver the kid, and then to go look for the lava.

So now Stefan displayed where his son got that tendency to suddenly leap into effusiveness. He broke out a map of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. He'd procured it from the park itself when he'd made an earlier visit to check out Crater Rim Drive, which like its name implies, circles the crater, allowing you these glimpses of this constantly mutating volcanic landscape. I won't go into it at the moment, but I made the drive several times while I was there—or rather parts of it. It's easy to spend so much time pulling off & gawking at yet another incredible piece of chaotic terrain that pretty soon, daylight is fading, and you’re realizing that maybe you'll have to come back again to see the rest. (Good news: an admission to the park covers you for as many repeat visits as you wanna make for a full week. Just remember to bring yr. crappy little ditto receipt that quickly shrivels into a dirty, sun-bleached ball in yr. rental car—at least if you're me.)

Anyway, Stefan, who turned out to be a meteorologist, of all fucked up things, (fucked up, particularly for me at that moment, as you can just imagine how ecstatic someone of that profession might get over a volcanic climate—thank god the fucker wasn't a geologist. I'd probably still be scrubbing the semen outta my hair,) launched into this dizzying set of scenarios for how we might meet, interspersed w/ Fun Fax re: the park, the volcanoes, etc., etc., etc... as well as anecdotes about his previous visit. (Stefan, it turns out, is one of those people who not only goes looking for park rangers to lecture him about the various natural features of the park, but who watches those crappy little video loops they have set up at "visitor's stations” around the parks.)

"It's just incredible!" he kept squealing, as he nearly sprang offa his bench, "Simply incredible!"

When I'd arrived for breakfast, my brain had already been a bit clouded from my trip. Following Niko's Germanic plot summary, Akiko's Daedelian maneuvering, and Stefan's, I felt completely lost and very far from home. And the day—not to mention the trip—was just beginning.