Lovin' the Rubble (Sadly NOT about a Betty-Barney 3-Way)

The blueness of the light was deepening, saturating the other visible colors. We turned directly away from the ocean, and headed up the mountain. Surrounded by all of this lava, I was surprised to see tufts of hardy plants lining Kilauea. The mountain isn't steep, but its gradual slope is difficult thanks to the lava underfoot. Here it's mostly new stuff. The blacks are rich and vivid, and the rock is thinner and more brittle. It breaks off in to sharp, angular pieces. It’s hard to believe they are drawn from the long, smooth sheets you're walking on, until you stop and tap the ground below you and hear its crisp hollowness. The bending of the terrain is like the curving of human limbs and torsos, which adds to a feeling that the ground beneath you is alive. It's funny, because the ground is not esp. fertile—the soil, such as it is, is not rich.

Some of that organic feeling is doubtlessly drawn from our almost mythic view of lava. It's earth that takes on burning, moving shapes. It flows like blood. It's easy to project all kinds of anthropormorphia onto it. Some of it may come from the warmth of the newer, thinner sheets. It's like skin.

There is this weird vitality in the Kilauea lava field. I felt it. While I am imaginative to a fault, I am also a rationalist. I spend a lot of time in the ether, but I recognize that I'm stuck with the facts, much as they bore me at times. But this is one place where I felt something that could never be quantified.

And that's sorta cool, but hard to explain. I won't try. I'll just tell you what happened, Sloth.

In many places, the sheets of lava have broken into larger pieces, which lay at all sorts of crazy angles between the ground and sky. There are enormous angular gouges between these smooth but steep planes. You spend a lot of time hopping across the gouges—several feet at a time—and footing at both starting and landing points can be uncertain. Often, you have to struggle for your balance at the end of a leap. Even a small pack like mine did not help, as it drew further on yr. sense of equilibrium, not to mention adding the impact each time you landed. All of the leaping and landing on hard surfaces took a toll on my various joints even more quickly than it normally would have.

So we weren’t so much hiking as we were hopping. Painfully and awkwardly. I rarely fell, but when I did, it sucked. In one case, I miscalculated my landing and found the toe of one boot jammed pretty snugly into 6" crack. With some awkwardness, I'm sure I could've extracted myself, but I was grateful to have a couple of my companions help pull my loose. At the end of several other leaps, the slopes of the broken plates were so extreme that I had to catch my balance with an outstretched hand. By the end of the hike, I'd stopped wishing for gloves. My palms were pretty thoroughly raw and stinging.

As if all of this flagellation wasn’t bad enough, I had a more specific disturbing experience as I went springing across sheets of lava. At one point, when a little warm, shadowy sunlight was still hitting us from the very edge of the horizon, Stefan and were hopping and talking. Abruptly, he stopped and stood a broken section of the lava plain. I stopped, puzzled and just looking at him. He grasped his belt and started loosening it.

I’m not sure if I looked stunned or horrified. He waved a hand at me and sing-songed, “Excuuuse me…”

I was relieved that he was dismissing me, but still confused till I heard the familiar splatting of piss on a hard surface. Usually it would be piss on concrete or asphalt. Here, it was piss on lava.

Behind me was laughter, and there, a little way off, was Niko, his back to me, pissing as well. Surrounded by krauts, comforted only by the thoughts that I was not the first to end up in this situation, that they had dicks, rather than guns in their hands, and that I didn’t have to look at said dicks. (I was, however, somewhat disturbed by this father-son synchronized pissing.)

When Niko had finished, shook and zipped, I asked him what was so funny.

“Home, I have a friend who paints and draws. He likes to put a guy in the corner.”

“Of the picture?”

Blank look, a smile, and a slow shake of the head.

“Bild Das Bild”

“Oh.” Eager nodding now. “Yes. Und das Mensch?”

“Yeah.”

“Er… ah…”

My turn to do the blank look/smile/slow shake of the head spiel.

“Uh… pisses…” a quick look at Stefan, but no admonishment was coming… “behind the other things in das Bild!” Hysterical laughter.

We started moving again.

“Oh?” Still not entirely sure why the kid is bringing this up.

“You, uh…”

What feels like a half-hour long—but prob. wasn’t—attempt at bilingual communication finally leads us through a territory we’d fumbled through, in search of Kafka, and Niko tells me that as I’d stood there, sandwiched between my 2 pissing companions, I had reminded him of this dude in the background of his friends’ pictures. Whatta honor!

An aside: much as I, Steve Forceman, figure of action—if not a full-on action figure am always armed w/ the appropriate gear, it quickly became clear that my acquisition of gear had been somewhat haphazard—not to mention entirely insufficient in some areas. Not only did my companions bear the classic handheld electric torches we all know and love from those times when there’s a black out, (‘tho they mostly left theirs in their packs,) they also had these silly-ass lamps strapped to their heads. Yep. Silly-ass. Until you realize how many open wounds they might’ve saved you as you hopped across the lava, trying to hold a fucking flashlight in one of yr. hands.)

Ha! But I wasn’t the only naïve moron on this fool’s errand! My companion, Mr. Utility Belt himself, must’ve noticed something that I’d observed myself: it was becoming warmer as we travelled, in part due to our level of exertion, but also to a growing warmth. Somewhat sheepishly, he asked me how much water I’d brought.

“Ummm… 2 liters.”

“Oh. Then we should be fine—if I may have some of your water.”

“OK.”

“I was stupid. I thought 1/2 liter would be enough. I left the rest back at the Jeep.”

Dumbass.

Despite all of my bitching, I know that I was very, very lucky throughout almost all of my trip. For example: Aside from my own travel plans, I hadn't given much thought to the calendar. As it happened, we were hiking to the lava flow on the night of a full moon. For almost the entire hike, it never got really dark, even after the dusk failed. We only used our flashlights near the end, when we were negotiating some of the more tricky cracks in the lava fields. We didn't really need them otherwise, and they detracted from the absolute beauty of the moonlight.

It was unearthly, breathtaking: plains of raw black rock, stretched far into the space in front of us, bathed in pale blue light. They seemed to glimmer like calm water at night. It might have felt aquatic, but there was the wind, growing noticeably warmer as we moved. Despite the thudding of our footsteps and the cracking of rolling pieces of lava, here was a hushed feeling of outright awe like you were in this spirit place. We all became quiet. There wasn't anything to say.

The moon was bright, as I said, but it was dark enough that we noticed something that the sunlight had hidden: a little way in front of us, further up the slope of Kilauea, was a capillary network of bright twisting orange-gold lines. They varied in thickness from what appeared to be very narrow cracks to open holes. It was difficult to tell much about the ground around them—not only was it dark, and were we still some distance from the lines, but the brilliance of the lights made your irises close down so that they didn't do much to cut the darkness around the lines.

The lava grew even darker beneath us and the thumping of our footsteps grew more resonant. It was clear that we were standing on crust that was very new and very thin. To say that I'd been distracted by the wonders around me would be a gross understatement. I'd been bewitched. But the wind was growing very warm and dry, drawing even more sweat from me after the walk. Stefan advised me to touch my boot sole. Its temperature was moving past warmth and becoming very nearly hot. The ground was thumping ever more hollowly beneath us.

My enchantment faded. I wasn't freaking out, but it did occur to me that there might be some danger signs here. I considered the ambiguity of our course. Just where the fuck were we going and how far? Had we stopped outside the area that park directions urge you to inhabit? There were no clear boundaries now. We'd lost the rope a ways back. We were getting closer to the fiery lines.

I asked Stefan how much further we were going. He mistook this for a statement of weariness. I was tired of course, and sore, and the walk back was sounding pretty brutal. Come to think of it, had I left the interior lights on? I'd had some trouble figuring out the Neon's headlight controls and had flashed the dome light on at least once in the process. I pictured us returning, exhausted to a car with a dead battery.

But still, no, that wasn't why I'd asked him about our plans. I was just wondering how close were we trying to get to the lava, and like, were we past the point of stupidity here? I wouldn't know, and although he had access to more lava trivia than I did, I wasn't sure that Stefan would know much about our proximity to the point of stupidity either. What’s more, he was starting to remind me of some lava-mad Captain Ahab, or at the very least, Quint from Jaws. Even if he knew that we’d left the rational world behind, I’m not sure he would have cared. Or said anything.

It was finally beginning to sink in that I was in the vicinity not just of unstable ground, but also of molten lava. If the ground beneath you gave, might you actually fall into a pool of the stuff? And if so, how fast would you burn? I pictured an exposed knee bone, blackened flesh. And like what would be the best way to season someone who's been lava roasted? Hmmm???

But these images arose more from curiosity than they did from fear—'tho there was some of that there too. I was more enticed than worried, and when Stefan said they could slow down to accommodate me, I said that was OK. Looking at those cracks of light, I was eager to see more.

Gettin' over the Hump

I'd estimate that we were about an eighth of a mile away from the lava when we watched it empty into the sea. We wanted to get closer, but I didn't realize how far Stefan was planning to go. I'm not sure if he believed he'd told me, as seemed to be the case with so many other things, or if he'd just been drawn in in the same manner that I was myself. I think we were all surprised by how far we went in terms of common sense.

The shadows were heavier and laced with sunset pink. They had already absorbed some of the lava plain's features. It wasn't really dark, but flashing lights in the distance stood out clearly. They were sawhorses, of all ridiculous things. The rope guideline was tied to them, and I found myself eager to get close to them, if for no other reason than to see if they bore Dept. of Public Works stamps. You could follow their course for as far as you could see up the mountain, but it was difficult to tell what might lay next to the most distant marks.

The air was changing along w/ the light. It was cooler, but not so much so that I put on the light rain jacket I'd brought w/ me. Earlier, Stefan had asked me if I'd thought to bring a coat. Good intentions, but obnoxiously patronizing behavior. For easy access, and to look like a Bill & Ted-style moron, I kept the jacket tied around my waist. That night, I never used it.

so then we started humping across the lava. except for but then we were hum-ping the lava. see i took a sharp piece a hardened lava and i hit it against the sheet ofd dried lava i was walking on? see? and i made this hole. and but then i unzipped my pants and dropped em n my drawers all down around my ankles see? and then i mounted the lava and started humping. sorta like prince when he humps the stage when he's doing darling nikki" in purple rain. you know, humping the ground or whatever you are standing (or R standing as Prince would put it) and/or walking around on. and i did that including yanking on my foot to get more traction like he does and pretty much that was a bad idea cuz i broke too far thru the lava sheet down to some live lava. it smelt like burnt pubic hair and extract of nightshade. and my dick burnt off and my balls and most of my pelvis and now i kinda roll more thAN WALK which makes me look sorta like the Tarman. remember? from return of the living dead? in fact i thoughta that almost right awa when they were walking me back toi the car so i could got to the e.r. cuz i noticed the lope, see? and plus i was all charred and bloody so i almost kinda looked like him that way too cept for not being a skeleton. and so when i wasn't screaming or falling down n writhing onna ground? see? well at these times i'd pretend i was the Tarman from return of the living dead, and i'd go 'more brains' and try to sound all gurgly as 'tho i had a buncha rotted mulch in my thnroat, but it really came across more like shrieky, like, say, i'd just burnt my dick off by fucking lava. see? well and but so i thought it was hilarious, buyt these kraut assholes with me didn't even crack a s,mile. and so i started thinking that maybe they haddn't even seen retun of the living dead!!!! which, how stupid is that? huh??? german people are all into death & pestilence, right, and these fuckers hadn't even see that movie which like is one of the best contemplations of the horrors of our mortality. the way of all flesh. (and i ain't tralkin about it gettin packed into the gaping clapped out cunt of one ms. l phair. nope.) see the thing is that altho' german people are all into death n' pestilence, they R snobs. they think they're betterf than other people--thus this "master race" plip plop they're all into. they've tried to distance themselves from it, sure. ytou'd do the same thing if not only the u.s. and the u.s.s.r. were occupying yr. capitola city for like decades, but the u.k. n' france too. how emnbarrassing woiuld that be? so see you'd do anything to make people think you weren't thinking germans weren't superior to everyone else. but like they're the one's who're most into ALL that "conceptual" and "performance" art. like hoiw in the movies whenever there's that sort art--like?!--well, like then, there's almost always some kraut flitting about eatin' canape at some gallery opening, isn't there? usually they're not even the artist, just some snobby asshole who's judging the work of the various charlatans who try to tell ya that soup cans (or soupcons for that matter) are fucking art. those people (the phony "artists"--more like fartists---hahahahahahahahahahahahzah--not the asshole germans, but just you wait i'll get back to their sausage suckin nature in jussa sec) well they R a disgrace cuz when yr hardearned tax dollar is being partitioned, some of it goes to something called the NEA. i just found out about it. i thought it was like NWA--you know just some "rappers" w/ a pottymouthed moniker that hadda be abbreviated thius making them seem more rebellious and mysterious. well i still don't know what it really stands for. nobody would tell me when i asked em. well this thing sucks off part a yr tax dollar like it was liz phair in one of those vaccuum tank thing so like she'd have xtra suckin power except she still wouldn't suck as much as a stanley kubrick movie or russell banks book or song offa the 2nd reputation record) well it sux yr. dollar off and then part of the federal dental dam that yr. tax dollar ejaculates into? well parta that's this nea thing and oh yeah i arreddy sed that well it sux its part of and then spits it into various organizations that support the arts. (it doesn't use a dental dam, but it still won't swallow.) like frinstance this one time? the nea gave $$$$$$$$ to this place that hadda exhibition where some art student who went to the same place i went to film school. i guess. well where he putta crucifix inna disha pee pee or something like that and people got all mad, cuz i mean wouldn't you? that's not art= i couldsa come up w/ that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! why doont the nea give me $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$???????????????????????? then i'd make some art.

and plus it's in bad taste. i mean the crucifix. that's in bad taste. the crucifix.
i mean, it's in a bad tasting medium. (and by medium, i do not refer to the artistic "form" of expression being utilized to convey meaning to its audience, but rather the fluid medium, i mean the pee pee and also not john edwards or miss cleo or madam blavatsky. weellll see i mean the crucifix is in bad taste. cuz it's in the disha pee pee. and that stuff tastes bad. (nothin like lemonade despite wht that pome sez) & see i know cuz i tried it and i don't just mean i drank some pee pee, cuzza who hazn't???? (u no u did 1nce. prince tole me.) i went to that very show and I drank the pee pee. alluva it and this "artist" got mad, and i think he should be grateful cuz all these other people swere mad and at least i'd cleaned the whole thing up. i even mad sure the crucuifix was good and clean by putting it in my mouth and bobbing my head up and down for a few minutes. it tasted bad, but was very polite about not comin' in my mouth which is good cuz i don't use a dental dam and i do swalllow which then can mean i get sick and hafta have my stomach pumpoed. like rod stewart.


that's why german people are snobs.

so they think they're above jhorror movies i bet becuz even tho they're into death n' petilence a shit, they think they're too superior.
so they didn't get my tarman joke and just kept screaming and barfing and trying to hold me up while i walked sorta like the tarman alla way down that long line of cars to where we parked earlier. so i wuz pisst that they didn't get the joke and then i remembered how tarman bites into that misfits fan's scalp thus producing all sorta arterial spraying and i wonderede how ez it would be to do that in real life--actually i wondered that b4 once or twice when i watched it. see? esp. cuz his jaws would be rotten and like how good were his teeth? they looked ok in the closeups but you never get to look at him very long prob. cuz he's 1 more prima donna asshole famous actor. like larry bud melman or thaty dog who plays scobby doo. bet he's a asshole. well anyway they make this big deal. in the movie? about how hardly no one dies w/ perfect teeth. so you had to wonder about that w/ the tarman.

so i guess it's pretty obvious what happened then. i seized stefan and tried to bite through his scalp. jusat to see how ez it was. and here's more proof that german people suck. he pushed me and i almost fell. and he said "don't do that. i know tarman does that in the movie, but it isn't that easy to do in reAL LIFE. i tried."



so he did see return of the living dead. i was wrong about that, but obviously i wasn't wrong about him being a superior fuck becuz he was telling me what to do and acting like he knew more than me. so i made sure i bled on him even more than i woulda otherwise. on the way to the hospital.



so the moral to the story is its ok to hump across lava but don't get confused or enticed by the word hiump enuff to fuck the lava or it will burn yr dick off. (i haven't done enough field work yet to say if fucking lava is bad if u r a girl, so if any enterprising female who's screwed some lava would like to send me some data i could coalate i'd think that was very neighborly of her. i realize see BTW that fucking lava might be mechanically different if u were a woman, but unless you had a strap on to fuck the lava with. but i did try shoving a long spur of lavaq up my ass figuring it would at least give me somew sense of what it would be like to fuck lava the way i presume a woman would??? and well i guess i picked a pieca poo ooo ooo, which is too brittle (insteada aah aah aah which is more solid) cuz it shattered inside my butt and then i hadda poo oo oo it out and that hurt bad.

(p.S. My fakkt-chekker tellz me that the correct terms for these types of lava are pahoepahoe, pronounced "pe-hoo-eh-hoo-eh," & a'a, pronounced "ah-ah." so you mite B able 2 understand my confusion here. I apologize fur NE inconvenience I may have caused yew...)


(p.p.s. (huh huh: "p.p.") Happy Halloween!!!)

neway back to that walk on the lava. minus the fucking part...

Whoopeee!!! It's the All Star Break!!!

Thank god... the All Star break...


It'll be nice to have a break from all this stressful mid-season play. We may have the best record in the league, but the Cubs have been looking a little crappy. Maybe they could use a break from all the stress. I know I could.


The All Star Game is fun. It has no real repercussions. You can just sit back and enjoy the baseball. Lot's to look forward to here. For one thing, I'm really amped to see Dan Uggla in action. That guy's a really exciting young player. He's got Hall of Fame written all over him!


Yep. Whadda relief. We better relax... in a couple of days, we'll have to gear up for the race to the post-season. But I think we can do it. I mean, c'mon, look at us. Every sports writer in the country has us pegged for National League champs, despite our recent shakiness.


100 years, baby, this is it. Reverse the Curse. World Champion Chicago Cubs...



Whazzat you say? The Cubs are about to play Game 3 of the NLDS tomorrow? And they lost Games 1 & 2 solidly? At Wrigley? The All Star Game is long over, carrying away so many hopeful possibilities w/ it?


OK, now you're just being asshole. It's not cool to fuck w/ me like that. Except when I consult my calendar, I see that you are right...


What the fuck? Did I sleep all the way through the stretch as well as the first half of the season? No, wait... I seem to've wounded myself. There's this large bloody gash in my head... Hmm... maybe my memory loss is the result of brain trauma. And speaking of injuries that I don't remember receiving, it seems their are some hesitation marks on my wrists. (Pussy... I never could bring myself to do it...) Please tell me it isn't true...


I must be drunk...


OK... I'm not...



It's only the second time we made it to the post-season 2 years in a row... in 100 years...


And now they've blown it?????? On the 100th anniversary. I mean, I know the odds of the Cubs winning the World Series exactly 100 years after their last Championship are ridiculously remote. (Assuming that is that cold, insentient mathematics place the same significance on the number 100 that we do, but I think that's a given, right?)


But to bring us this close, only to yank the rug out from under us again? This is getting just too fucking old. And painful.


So I guess it's time to go get drunk and hope that the sweet nepenthe of liquor takes me off to a cool, shady place, light years away from Wrigley Field and all the misery it has caused me, not to mention the misery it has caused uncountable others. Maybe all of us can just sleep, sleep peacefully--maybe all the way through the 2009 season, if we're lucky...


And if we're really, really lucky, maybe we can just sleep all the way through every baseball season for the rest our lives... Yeah, if we're really, really, really lucky...


But let's not get carried away...


Yet.

CLINCHED???

I must be drunk...

OK...  I'm not...

It's only the second time we made it to the post-season 2 years in a row... in 100 years...

Well, regardless... Let's not get carried away...

Yet.

Some Thoughts on Fire, Water, Lawn Chairs, & the Insufficiency of Language

Above you will find a picture of a face that formed eerily in my sink. Frightening, isn’t it?

I’d just poured dish soap onto some old coffee that had mostly turned to mud by that time. Earth & Water: This is the sorta fury you can expect when the elements meet.

Which reminds me of where I left off when I was telling you about Hawaii…

So but then Stefan, Niko and I gathered our gear about us and headed up the road. There were clumps of people all ahead of us, walking along the cliffs that lined the ocean. Everyone was stopping and gaping downward as they walked ahead of us. When we got closer to the cliff line, it became apparent what they were looking at.

As I write Hawaii, I am consistently frustrated by just how inadequate language is. You can say these things are amazing. You can say that the sea was frothing like an infant’s saliva, that the cliffs were colored in hundreds of eggplant shades and had the texture of an ancient person's skin. And the lowering sunlight was, no shit, like the orange you find in one of the middle layers of an open flame. Clichéd? Maybe. Exaggerated? Sorry, no. And still, still, damn unequal to what I saw when I looked down toward the water. The wind coming off the water was powerful, but beautifully warm. Not at all what I expected. The waves, in truth, boomed.

So we gawked and snapped pictures. Stefan kept looking to me for a reaction. I don't know what he saw on my face. I do know that it was exhilarating. There really are experiences in life that are thrilling in this way. Somehow, strangely, it's easy to forget feelings of this nature, but I experienced them then. All I can offer you now are these paltry words and a picture. The truth, predictably and sadly, is that you had to be there.

Anyway, the light was quickly changing, so we shouldered our packs and got moving. I often walk around the city with the very same backpack that I was carrying then—sometimes for a few miles. What's more, when I was a kid, my parents had coerced me into several backpacking trips. So I figured the hike wouldn't be very difficult. Thing is, I underestimated the distance—not badly enough that it would've killed me, but, even worse, I’d also forgotten a piece of backpacking knowledge I'd picked up as a kid: hiking on irregular terrain is a bitch. Especially with a pack throwing off yr. sense of balance. Even if this had occurred to me I think I wouldn't still've been surprised by how punishing this hike was. These walking conditions weren't just difficult—they were downright bizarre—if you're not used to hiking across lava anyway.

And the beginning of the hike was deceptively easy. Even after we'd left the road, the first stretch was easy—level and stable. It was flat and open. There wasn't a proper trail, but the ocean was on yr. right. It was pretty obvious where you had to go. There was some scrubby vegetation, but for the most part, we'd entered abnormally rocky terrain. There wasn't even dirt to speak of, just these deep chocolate brown plains of rock.

If you remain in rough alignment with the road you left behind, you hit on a display of the profundity and peculiarity of volcanic forces. In fact, it's downright funny—I mean funny “ha”—chunk of paved road, complete with yellow line, embedded in the lava. It's maybe 10 feet long—and somehow it survived one of the recent eruptions, while all the rest of the road was obliterated. It appears that the lava just jumped over it.

Very slowly, dusk was building up around us. The light was becoming blue. We noticed a large group of people spread out on the rock in front of us. There were whole families—with plenty of kids in tow. They were seated on blankets—even a couple of lawn chairs—and looked, for all the world, like they were waiting for the fireworks to start in Grant Park. Thing is, they were looking east and down—toward the sea—where an enormous, violent cloud of steam was rising out of the sea.

The mood was something like I'd expect you’d find at one of those mass UFO campouts—friendly and outgoing—as 'tho everyone wanted to acknowledge your presence and the experience you were all having together. Many a beer can was lifted in our direction. Many a friendly salute was tipped our way. We reciprocated, then got down to the business of viewing the lava flow.

Here's where fire meets water: the lava flow empties into the Pacific. And people come from all over the world to just sit and watch—esp. at dusk when the darkness allows you to see the lava more clearly, but isn't so heavy that you can no longer appreciate the texture of the ocean and its angry response to the lava.

It grew even darker, and most of us there were getting out shit together and preparing to move on. At first I was surprised to see that so many people were going the other way—back to the cars. Somehow the communal spirit had led me to think we'd all just go on together. When I realized how many of them did not have packs of any sort, it became clearer to me. Also there were the kids. It was only then that I realized how much the difficulty of the walk might, understandably deter people.

There was also the fact that what we were proposing to do was not thoroughly endorsed by the park, 'tho due to intense demand, they do allow it. There have been shelves of lava that have taken hikers with them as they've collapsed into the sea. There are rope borders surrounding the safe area, but as you go further up the side of the mountain, they become few and far between. You've moved away from the sea, but the ground is unstable in places. There are the flashing buoys the ranger mentioned, which are fairly easy to find in the dark, but there were times over the course of the night when we lost them altogether.

So Long...

Just a word, and it has nothing to do w/ Carlos Zambrano's no-hitter yesterday...

It seems fucking stupid to say this at your blog, but where else can you say it? I can't begin to express how hard the suicide of David Foster Wallace hit me. All the more reason for not say anything, Right? Still...

David Foster Wallace was the real deal: a "genius" if such a thing exists. (He had an award that says he was!) He was so far beyond most people who try to write... That's not to say that you shouldn't try. I don't know much about the guy, but my suspicion is that he would want you to write. (Possibly because he'd want to see what you came up w/.)

I also don't mean that you might not be a better writer than him if you did try. You should. Write. I only mean that the man understood language and that he was compelled by the curious twisting of ideas of both the real and made-up kinds. And somehow these traits (and prob. others that I know nothing about) allowed him to express so many things so beautifully--most notably, to me, the expression of loneliness and of the desire to connect w/ others around you--no matter how imperfect you or they are.

Some people called Infinite Jest, his best known book, gimmicky, but for all its twists and turns--which I also enjoyed--what spoke to me the most was its heart.

And to watch somebody who could create that--who is so far beyond me in areas of my life that mean a great deal to me--to see him destroyed just tastes like copper and shit. It's just as desolate as a car-less 3 a.m./3 mile walk home from the bar in the dead of winter. It's worse than the hangover you have the next morning--the kind where you're still puking, altho' you're sober. It's one more piece of evidence in the ol' life sucks case-file, that I, as a P.I., have been looking into.

If it came to that for him, how are so many other things gonna end up? And what kinda stupid ass world is this if that's where things can go?


Anyway, like I said, I really know very little about the dude, so I'll just be grateful for his writing and how in a small way, it made me feel and see differently. Then I'll shut the fuck up...

I Quit...

Just wanted to say that since no one ever reads this blog, I’m closing it down. I just don’t see the point if no one’s going to read it. So long, suckers…

Mmf… Snicker… Gotcha!!!

Juuusssttt kiddin’… Sorry. I’ve just always wanted to do an entry like that. It seems like the people who put them up at their blogs are having so much fun!

See ya soon…

The Road to Ruins

Hawaii. Now where were we? Wait! I know…

After some heel-dragging of the "Ida know, what do you wanna do?" variety, we finally grabbed our packs and headed up the trail. The sunlight was angling more sharply now—on its way toward setting, but taking its time about it. Beneath the trees, the shadows were getting heavy. It took my eyes a minute to adjust. The dimness made it seem later than it really was. The little blots of sunlight that bled through the shadows shifted and moved about. It was pleasant, dreamlike.

We weren't very far into the woods when we heard someone tramping in front of us. I expected it to be a stranger, and it was difficult to be sure, but after a moment I recognized Stefan. He was lugging his pack, and looked as sprightly as ever

After a brief greeting, Stefan asked us what we thought of the crater. I felt too dazed to verbalize, but he was clearly waiting for an answer, as he led us into the parking lot. Niko, of course, said it was O.K or something to that effect. I still found it difficult to form words. It was all too disorienting, and Stefan seemed to think that Niko & I understood what procedure we would be following from this point on. Maybe he'd communicated it to Niko, but all I'd ever heard was a request that I bring his kid up to the park, and if I had extra time, to shuttle him around the crater; (which I would enjoy as well, I was told). Then I would meet Stefan at 5 p.m., Niko in tow, in the parking lot near the trailhead, from whence we would all depart to see the lava flow. (I had only the vaguest idea of where the lava was flowing, BTW, 'tho I coulda figured it out if I'd looked at the map.) That was all I’d been asked or told. But OK, some people aren't real adept with the whole communication biz, no matter what language you or they are speaking. (Or not.) (Or something.)

So Stefan headed over to his Jeep and began re-arranging the contents of his backpack, adding some materials he thought he might need for his camp on Mauna Loa. He asked me if I had water. I said that I did. He didn't ask how much I was carrying, but I had a 1.5 liter bottle in my pack. Being the avid hiker that he is, I suspect he would've thought I was traveling a little light. So was he 'tho, as I’d find out later.

What followed was another one of those annoying and increasingly familiar moments in which Stefan either believed, falsely, that he'd explained his wishes to me before or that I would just intuitively understand: Seems that he wanted me to drive us to the edge of the lava field whereat we would be obliged to begin hiking toward the lava flow. I'd been in the goddamn car enough that I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of more driving, but recognized that, yeah, we weren't all gonna fit in his jeep, esp. w/ all his camp gear. So I guess his expectations were warranted after all, assuming I wasn’t kinda dumb. (And here’s an object lesson in why you shouldn’t assume.)

So off we did drive up Chain of Craters road and away from the caldera and towards the Pacific in the south. Along the way, Stefan and I made small talk. Turns out he's a meteorologist, specializing in climate change. His job necessitated frequent travel all over the place. Poor fucker.

As I said before, he didn't seem particularly interested in the realities of my own job, which was a relief because it's boring as hell. Instead he asked me a buncha questions about my writing, the drawings I'd been making, my guitar, etc. He was making me out to be a real Renaissance Man and complimenting on my evident gifts. I wasn't sure how he'd been able to evaluate my "gifts" at all—unless he saw more in that rudimentary sketch of the mountains than I did. Cynic that I am, I thought he mighta been kissing my ass a little—prob. to placate me for all the horseshit I'd been obliged to do. 'Tho again I don't know why he'd have thought I needed placating.

I may be bitching a lot here, but at the time, I wasn't really upset, and to the extent that I was irritated, I don't think it showed much. I just think that's how this guy is: inclined to curry the goodwill of everyone around him. But then I may be unfair—at least partially. Maybe he’s just capable of what’s seeing what’s good or interesting in other people—an area in which I myself am not gifted, but I try.

As we drove, Stefan maintained this running travelogue, noting the signs of various volcanic phenomena. I was impressed, but he told me he didn't want to take too much credit for his knowledge. Seems he'd just asked a lotta rangers a lotta questions—here, and around Mauna Loa, where he was planning on setting up camp.

As you drive along Chain of Craters Road, the hardened lava your moving over represents several past eruptions. Its texture ranges from smooth, brittle sheets to thick, dense solid rock. Its color varies from reddish-brown through a deep chocolate black to a grayer, blue shade of black. Occasionally you find these peculiar glass-like chunks of brightly colored rock—greens or reds or golds. The landscape is bizarre and ever-shifting. You pass steaming craters, uneven rock formations, and dry, scrubby vegetation.

The drive takes a while, but seems to go very quickly. Stefan and I kept just staring at the shit around us. (Niko was again engaged with his writing.) Stefan would giggle and hop around in his seat, while I just watched, amazed.

At some point, the road ran up against the sea and curved back east along the cliffs that lined the water. Not long after that, I realized I wasn't in a national park at all, but rather was looking for a parking spot outside a major rock concert. There was that endless line of cars you always find at a large rock show, resting along both sides of the road with people milling about them, but mostly headed in the direction the cars were facing. Shit! And I didn't even know who I was gonna be seeing! And then something really frightening occurred to me. Now I ain't a kraut-hater when it comes to contemporary popular music. I like Kraftwerk and Oval and Einsturzende Neubaten and Neu! and pale and frog-croaking Nico—who should not be confused w/ my current traveling companion.

But so like OK, I was with krauts—and much as you might not wanna generalize, they do have these weird musical predilections. Some of the performers above support this thesis, I'd say. Worse, part of my present company had already shown himself to be, well, a bit eccentric when it came to the toonz he liked. Riverdance! Holy shit! I might be going to see Riverdance! As soon as that occurred to me, I was tryin' to find my false tooth that contained that cyanide capsule, y'know, for just this sorta fatally hopeless situation. But then I remembered that I didn't have no false teeth nor deadly cyanide capsules, and that in fact that was just some shit that happened in a movie or 2 I saw once.

So I was screwed. I was gonna hafta sit through Riverdance. And like, you know these krauts would stay for the whole thing, and like now I was responsible for the assholes cuz they'd coerced me into driving them 45 min. into this volcanic desert, and like what was I gonna do now, leave 'em there?

Sure, they could prob. hitch a ride home w/ some other Riverdance enthusiasts. (And if so, I would rather be a fly on the wall of a shithouse belonging to Liz Phair—whose hygienic habits we already know are obscene—than I would be a fly on the walla that fucking car. They'd prob., like, compare and contrast the relative strengths and weaknesses of all these various performances of Riverdance that they'd seen and like who had the best tap shoes and which guy was the gayest and wouldn't you like to lap away at his asshole to get him all good and loosened for yr. post show dressing room assault??? Huh wouldntcha?????

And Stefan would squirm around all girly like, talkin' about how he was gonna do all these really unpleasant German type things to the guy like shit on him and piss on him and write words on him with earwax and braid his nose (not his pubic) hair and maybe stick a paper towel tube up his urethra and pour lemon juice in there—which not only hurts like hell but makes yr. piss even more yellow—and but then he'd prob. make the guy sculpt things out of years of accumulated toe jam that he keeps in a jar in his backpack and also make him eat a kidney stone he'd passed—the guy couldn't bite it neither like sometimes how you want to bite a mint, but you know you should suck it to make it last longer even tho it’s less fun, well this guy'd have to do the same thing w/ this kidney stone and that would take who the fuck knows how long? Maybe kidney stones don't decay any faster than bones, which would mean that the guy would prob. be long dead and have that stone still decomposing in his skeletal puss till Judgment Day? And that'd be really embarrassing I mean if there really was a Judgment Day cuzz how like all the dead bodies there are supposed to rise up or something, and this guy'd rise up sucking on another dude's kidney stone, & all the other cadavers would be pausin' periodically in the midst of their post-apocalyptic rapture or terror or some shit to laff at him for being such a punk that not only was he in Riverdance, for fuck’s sake, but like he was suckin' this kidney stone!!! And the poor jerk would still hafta keep suckin', cuz Stefan's rotted remains would be standing right next to him with a moth-eaten riding crop, (don't ask me how much or even why a riding crop could hurt you if you were like mostly a rotting bag a bones,) making sure he kept sucking on it. And what would it taste like at that point??? I guess the guy wouldn't prob. have entirely if at all functional taste buds by that time. So but, wait, what the fuck would it taste like in the first place???

I never passed a kidney stone, but I vow that if I ever do I'll pluck it from its watery resting place and begin workin' on it in hopes that at Judgment Day when I'm called on to explain all the shit I did, I can at least go hey look! I figured out whatta kidney stone tastes like. That's gotta be worth something, right? And but I'm guessing it tastes sorta like nut sack sweat combined with myrrh and incense and Robotussin, (which I drink alla time, cuz it gets me real high). And but you could maybe use it in a recipe or 2. Not too many, cuz unless we can get some dudes to sit around repeatedly passing kidney stones, they're prob. not gonna turn up too often. But they'd be kinda a delicacy that way and besides you could prob. get some poor guys in the 3rd and even 1st worlds to do that cuz they're gonna get exploited anyway, so why not make ‘em pass a buncha stones alla time? Whazzat you say? That's not funny? Well, who the fuck said I was tryin' to be funny? Not me. Now I'm not sure if a dude can even pass more than one kidney stone, but like say if you did that'd create a whole new industry, and that's good right? Kidney Stone Farming.

Don't worry, we could do it free range style? OK??? And y'know industry's what drives the economy and that's good for some why or other. And it uplifts us all. All our leaders agree on that, so we're stuck w/ it anyway. ‘Cuz I'm doubting there's gonna be any mass uprising till, oh, maybe Judgment Day, (there's yr. fucking mass uprising!!) and we've already discussed what that'll be like vis-à-vis this whole kidney stone thing...

Anyway...

But so there were long lines of cars on either side of the road, and slow animal that it is, my brain was trying to make sense of it. Stefan was giggling away knowingly. He'd had a feeling it would be like this, he said. I hadn't.

My mind finally clicked. Here was a concept with which it was all too familiar: we needed to find a parking spot. I cruised slowly along the line of cars, but it was like looking for a spot in Wrigleyville during a weekend Cubs game. A little farther up was a woman in a park ranger shirt—complete with tie—was standing in the middle of the road. She was talking to the people who were milling about. She walked directly toward us, so I rolled down my window.

For a moment I thought maybe the eruption had gathered some steam, and that she was going to tell us it to highball it back up the road. The eruption’s been fucking with the coastline all along there, reshaping it on a, like, daily basis. I started having this visions of panicked crowds from Toho Pictures. Funny but not completely ridiculous. Lava had almost wiped out Hilo not too far back there. But being as no one was running or screaming I decided it was more likely that we'd arrived too late. Nothing had been said about set hours of park operation, so I was gonna ask her if we could still hike out to see the lava.

I always expect people in uniforms to be assholes for some reason, even 'tho it seems to be true about 50/50. (Same odds you get w/ a plain clothes type person in my experience.) She was not at all formal or unfriendly. She told me that if I could find a spot to park, we were free to head on out. The only request she made was that we park on the roadside, not off in the lava nearby.

Ha but OK, while the ranger was coo’, the situation was not quite so much. I've lived in Chicago for 13 years. By now, you might think I'd be aces at parallel parking. You would be wrong. I suck at parallel parking. Fact of the matter is if I can take the L somewhere I usually do. I am aces at navigating the subway system. When it starts getting into the need for buses 'tho, I'll usually opt for the car. 'And ‘tho there are, of course, plenty of work situations in which I hafta drive, here, faced w/ these little tiny gaps that might be construable as a parking spots, if you were good at the shit, I was lost.

Finally Stefan offered to park the car, saying he was a sooper dooper parallel parking impresario. I sed u go girl, hopped outta the driver’s seat then proceeded to watch him park. He'd, like, gun it, the car would leap forward about 2 inches, and then he'd like immediately slam on the brakes. Surge screech surge screech. Glad the fucking thing was a rental. Prob. wouldn'ta had much of a transmission left if you did that very often.

The funny part is, I don't think his approach got him into the spot any faster than my own creep-tap style woulda, but I will acknowledge that he didn't once kiss the bumper of the either cars. Very impressive.