project

When a man gives up his project, but is strong enough to know that he has left behind his greatest child, he hears the child scream and it is deafening but perhaps he is a prisoner of war and he cannot make his way back, even despite his strength and his will to fight, he cannot make his way back just yet, and so he finds the old green airfield, he sees where the planes once landed, he sees the abandoned bunkers now inhabited by the tarps of gypsies, all of this was natural to him once, it is sad when a man reflects on just the genesis of his greatness so many years later, but he cries at the sprout which first appeared, but this is his only memory, by now a forest should have been in his stead, but each night he rests on the concrete of others, the anonymous collective labor of others, and he feels the scream of the past deaths of them, of the coming death whimpers of those who will make the next thing he buys and eats. He returns to his child eventually. The child is bitter from abandonment and has been scorned and alone and without his father. He must now tame this vicious creature. “You must start from the beginning. But I will not make this easy, I will mistrust your every word. I will doubt every lesson you illustrate. I am unteachable. If I am indeed your project, I am battle made manifest and I will kill you.”

As Moraline Creates

We shall see new oceans in the desert.
The rain will cease and a famine will begin.
Heat will kill where it did not before.
Cold will come and strangle the surprised faces of the warm.
They will drown.
And in this a new paradigm will begin.
We will smile at new dictators.
New minds will be harvested.
The best will be culled and murdered.

A poem I wrote when I was married

A while ago I was married. I found the perfect girl in the mountains of Bulgaria. I should have stayed there with her, and if I had we'd still be hitched, have a big family in a village and shoot guns in the sky at the new year. But I messed up and brought her here. She grew sad quickly. I saddened myself. Collective sadness grew to the point of bifurcation. How tragic, yet how tragic the American girlfriend, the wickedly satisfying yet meaningless phenomenon

Under the doorway

You hear people in
the hallway, because there is
space under the door.
I think you are drunk,
my dear, and your spills
on the bed sheet, your wine,
your beer bottles filled with
tobacco juice, your late night
laments of youth lost, your
awkward hair-pulling kisses,
they are sweet but they are
fading, like your skateboard
stolen unprotected one meaningless
crater-filled afternoon.
Sometimes, honey, when the rain
chases away the neighborhood
fireworks, I will come to you
in the dark stairwell, and knock
at your door. You are and
are not ready for me. But over
chicken soup and beer
you will think again and come
alive and awaken like the snow
when it melts in late Fall.

Death

If I die before I wake, I ran 5x1000 meter repeats right before I kicked the motherfucking bucket. My splits were between 3:12-3:15. I know boxing and other exotic pursuits are all the rage these days, but I must point out my joy in running and how I cannot approximate it to anything else. How else can a man feel such joy with mere 1000 meter repeats on a track--I'm not in the Andes, there is no beauty, right, of and on this track? Indeed the purist might speak of the beauty of the red track, but the joy comes from the speed and the motion and the rhythm of the running. Indeed, there is cycling, indeed. But it is an artifice, the necessary intermediation of the machine.
Indeed, death, you did not interrupt me. You did not occur. I do not know your name.

on the battlefield

The French man has taken the approach to lay down cover fire, bomb from the sky, constantly fire mortars, pour blankets of napalm upon his enemies until nothing, nothing but his own pattern of words remain. Ludwig chooses to snipe. Hide in the bushes, take out the Sargent. Over the the mountain tops with his rifle, take out the general, or at least attempt to.

We speak of language games but what we really speak of is murder and battle. Let's not hesitate to characterize this 'game' as war, as games prepare men for war. That is their value, despite the joy they give us.

Sartre did not care to analyze language games and uses and contexts of words: he chose to scorch the earth until only his own words remained.

Ludwig felt no such discomfort, and felt he could, by killing a few commanders here and there, demoralize the troops to the point the war ended or went in his favor.

I ask my fellow men: who do you wish to murder with your words?

I shall see you on the battlefield.

And then at the end of the run I am exhausted

These are excellent ideas. I have noticed how much I enjoy watching the sport. A battle with fists is pure. Wrestling is pure. Martial arts. Mountain climbing. I can only imagine these things. The distance running is often too much for me, especially when surpassing the ten mile mark on a 16 mile run. I think of my limits, whether 10 is enough, why I can't just get away with 10 and not 16. Every run I rationalize. Last night after the sitting at the female office job, after the working on the billionaire's project, I somehow ran 8.4 in the dark and in the cold when no one else was there. I told myself I would run 11 miles, but at the end of the third lap my heart grew weary, a cumulative effect of lack of sleep, drinking, and desk sitting, and the 'stress' of putting together a new set of purchase accounting proforma financial statements for the billionaire's project several times a day. He is a man who has his project, and accountants account for his work. I am a scribe. I am scribe in a world of female CFOs and investment bankers. I have my own cube with my own garbage can. I print out photographs of shores of France and Oregon and my screen saver has the distant hills of the coffee covered Andes. I drink whiskey at night and speak to girls stoned. When my body is feeling physically well, women come to me magnetically. It is either easy and fun or I just want to go home. They can sense when I am on. We can interpret this "I should not have gone out last night" contention infinitely. We can erase the existence of the concept of regret and shame, we can say a man transcends these concepts in his greatness and his overcoming, and that only in weakness does he say such things. "No, you got what you wanted as you entered these bars weak and broken, physically and mentally weary and broken. You got exactly what you wanted. You destroyed your chance of racing in the morning and you did not race. This led you to not be distracted on a Saturday morning and to think. It led you to commit yourself to 15 miles. It led you to sit and think alone for the rest of a Saturday and not chase running girls. It allowed you not to win this morning, to hold the chinese-made piece of shit medal or trophy in your hand. It allowed you to buy that ticket to _____, where finally, in 2012, you will go and never return to the country, even for family cancer, even for the bitching and moaning of others."

When I am torn and exhausted and withered and without a hope of a project (as was the foul aura emitted last night), I have no energy, no magnetism, and I hopelessly chase after these worthless creatures. On Wednesday they wouldn't leave me alone as I ate Mexican food by myself at a bar. A girl came up to me with a cell phone and told me I resembled a professional poker player, no here's a better photo. She was a beautiful woman. The waitresses stalked me. They sensed I had a project worth destroying, and the prospect of my destruction was just too damn tantalizing for them to miss. They would risk or welcome pregnancy and heartbreak for the chance to ruin me. I wanted to be left alone. And in my lonely brokenness on a Friday night, just two days later, a night where I just wanted to sleep, I hit the streets with Chrome, exhausted, stoned, incapable of getting drunk. I had nothing to offer and the women sensed it.

In the end these creatures--this 'gender' (how humorous we use this innocuous word to distinguish them)--do not deserve me. In the end we 'get' nothing, there is nothing to 'have.' This is the great funny trick and joke of the matter. A man can't make himself into anything. He doesn't get what he wants because there is nothing to 'get.' You can't own or hold a 'personality,' an accomplishment, some creation. Nothing is there. The moan that the fat french man in WWII with his ontology was some speed-fueled sitter's paradise of transcendence. The fat and short man wrote the book and then said: "ha, look at that, no man can beat me at this game. Even the youthful and strong will obey this escapist ontology."

I have 15 miles to run. A man gets exactly what he wants because his goal is exhaustion and a destruction of all discursive thought in favor of a chemical feeling, a creation from the destruction of the body through distance running. A man gets exactly what he wants in that he will get nothing every time. A derrida play on words, that the secret is that there is no secret. No a man gets gets gets. A man gets, a woman just masticates the getting of the nothing of the having. A man doesn't even want to go into the ring with a woman. She follows him for a biological reason. He is trying to get what he wants, she is trying to insert herself in the middle, trying to tell him that she is either a) what he wants, b) part of what he wants, c) one of the many things he wants, d) part of the process of getting the thing he wants, e) a necessary condition in his enjoyment of the getting of the thing that he wants, d) a necessary condition for the enjoyment and understanding of the having of the thing that he wants.

Yes a man who spars in the ring all day does not have these thoughts. He gets what he wants, in that he has abandoned the pursuit of the getting. He is nothing. This is the overcoming, it is the overcoming of the getting and the having, the reflection on the joke of the 'existence' of the 'past.' This is what the short and fat and chain smoking frenchman figured out. It was a perfect realization for a worthless speed-popping sitter. Greatness is a terrible disappointment, he says, and the women love it--women cling to this ontology of destruction and pessimism. Sartre shows women why it is OK to kill greatness.

A woman may well be the only parasite who has learned a man's language and re-written his language under its own moral code. A brilliant aikido move of morality. Nietzsche focused on the master-slave distinction in morality. He looked at Christianity and Jesus and realized the brilliance of it all--it empowered the slaves, the suffering of the downtrodden. But man, if he had observed what the women were to do 70 or so years later--perhaps they were in the process of doing it--he would have realized that female codified morality is even a greater accomplishment than that of Christianity. Perhaps they stole the entire playbook from Christianity. Is this possible???

What is fascinating is how I am untroubled by the poor 'quality' of my 'writing.' It is akin to saying i am untroubled by the poor quality of my actions, as 'writing' is simply the accounting for the meaning of experience, and if a man's actions are worthless, his writing will be worthless, if his actions are worthless, he will have no insight into anything, especially the worthlessness of his actions. But a great man, if there ever is a great man, is always pushing himself at that last mile, he always hates himself, he is always pushing himself into that new abyss, he is always pushing himself into that new sphere of inconsolable loneliness and solitude, not because he 'wants' to be 'alone,' but because no one can come with him in his journey, no one. He wants to share with the world his experience, his battles, his creations, but it cannot, by its very nature, ever be shared. A great man's life is wretched and he will never find happiness as there is no getting or having. A great man gets nothing. A man, muted and transformed by a woman and her codes and tricks and ploys and disguises--a woman's favorite holiday is Halloween--will get what he wants. She will have slowed the speed of his spirit to the the point it no longer moves. It is at that point she whispers to him: You can have it.


On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 4:12 PM, Moraline the boxer wrote:
> this man came to these ideas through rigorous testing. putting a lone
> man into a boxing ring with another man is the best testing ground.
> putting him through all the training for a fight he sees things,
> elements of his character that express themselves. you can hide these
> things in the world of men and particularly in the world of women. but
> in the ring, at the moment of contact with the glove, you cannot hide
> your failings.
>
> mike tyson is a good example of this. he had a defect of character
> that was never corrected and eventually he was exposed. he was exposed
> in the ring. of course he and his apologists will blame his biting off
> Holyfield's ear on a reversion to street life or thugism or according
> to Tyson it was his response to Holyfield's repeated head butts to his
> forehead.
>
> the simple fact was Tyson was trying to escape the ring. he wanted
> out. all Tyson's prior opponents with the exception of Buster Douglas
> (who knocked him out) had laid down to Tyson, been totally
> intimidated. Holyfield stood up to him and Tyson was exposed. His ear
> biting was just an excuse to escape the ring, an excuse to escape the
> confrontation with the failing of his character. as d'amato would say,
> it was what Tyson intended to do all along.
>
> Boxing rather than philosophy or literature is a pure project. you
> cannot escape your failings. you are pushed to a place where the
> consequences are blood and tears and pain and maybe death.
>
> i dont give a fuck about any project that doesnt attempt to get to a
> similar place. any project that does not go as far as boxing can be
> weasled out of. every fucking philosopher or writer is a crybaby and
> maker of excuses: that is what his writing is. he uses writing to
> dodge an element of his character rather than confront it. he doesnt
> like the man he sees but doesnt have the nerve and guts and
> committment to the training that woudl change his character,
> strengthen its weak points.
>
> the purity of boxing is that it forces a man to see his weakness, and
> then asks him to train to overcome it. then finally you test yourself
> against another man in a ring. yes, it is not war or a street fight.
> it is a very controlled test with a referee and judges and a trainer
> who protects you and is there to assist you.
>
> cus d'amato was the greatest trainer who ever lived. nearly up there
> with him is percy cerutty who trained distance runners. however,
> boxing is a purer test of a man than distance running.still, in any
> sort of physical test where there are physical consequences, a man can
> learn of his character. if he intended all along to weasle his way out
> and find a way to secretly quit, then he will do so. if he intended
> all along to overcome, to never lose whatever the costs may be, then
> he will do so.
>
> the results of a man tested are determined long before the test. he
> does not learn in the ring how to undo something he could not undo
> during his training.


On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 1:53 PM Saint Maximin, a man among women, wrote:
Terrible quote. He meant to say the outcome is as good as the project. He
doesnt account for the genesis if the project.

On Oct 27, 2011 10:22 AM, Moraline of the lake and forest wrote:
"No matter what anyone says, no matter the excuse or explanation, whatever a person does in the end is what he intended to do all along."

Nonsense

I will stop this nonsense. It is obvious that women are a worthless distraction. All my drinking comes from their presence--whiskey is a palliative for their utter absence of intellectual curiosity and rigor. The shame tactics, their revisionist memoranda of understanding. No, it was the 15.8 miles this morning that made my mind right. I do not run this hard or see such sunlight during the day. I cannot carry on at a desk anymore. I cannot expose myself to the professional consumers of the western world. Fear and shame is what they offer to keep a man tethered. Fear and shame and codification. Moraline has written of this. But for him these are distant memories. He has overcome--not transcended, mind you--but overcome. I overcame when I was younger. Then let myself lead myself astray for a woman. To destroy my greatest thinking years, and the possibility that little creativity remains. It is no wonder that I attach each mile as if it were my last.

Women, economic resources, rules, and oligarchic maneuvering

When fathers (or masculine, disciplinarian mothers) put women on a pedestal, when they encourage them to pursue careers in science, medicine, engineering, law, humanities, a false confidence is given to women. Further reinforced by their ability to endure menial exams, women believe themselves equal. And then when they must invent, when they must be courageous, they have nothing in them. In frustration and desperation, they lash out. They want more rules, standards, regulations. They resent male creativity, risk taking, courage: “How can it be when both father and mother told me I can do anything I want, when I achieved the highest scores on exams—something must not be fair. Another rule must be made to make things fair. Someone must suffer. Men must suffer.” Did the oligarchs realize this would happen, is this part of their plan too?

Mallory, courage, and Colombia

Apparently Mallory, the first guy to attempt Everest, had a 1/3 chance of dying in the trenches of France in the Great War. It was trench warfare. It’s bad enough they shot high caliber rifles which numbed the ears. They shot mortars all day without ear protection. Mortars landed in their trenches and blew away their friends. Poison, blistering gas was thrown by both sides. By the time the war was over, the people left alive either were shell shocked or just didn’t give a fuck anymore. That’s what made him a great explorer. He didn’t give a fuck anymore. I bet Moraline had a similar min going into the desert in Patagonia. “Who fucking cares about that bitch, death.”

Moraline was certain he would die in either Colombia or Argentina. He was so certain that he told me that I would probably die in Colombia too. I always write a will before I leave, but he told me specifically to write one before I went to Colombia. It gave the mountains a new light.

Man, woman: male, female, destiny

Moraline has written extensively on the topic of men and women. His explorations have included direct experimentation with women of all colors several nationalities. He has traveled Europe and South American to explore, and, indeed, on the way, has made observations of culture, but more importantly, how mate selection, gender roles, and child rearing play crucial roles in forming human conduct.

Yet the ‘world’ is often seen as one aggregate, some pantheistic God, connected by the internet, television, air travel, and large industrial concerns which sell similar goods and services to men and women (read: families) around the world. Within this leviathan of a creature, we like to parcel out ‘men’ and ‘women.’ And then the hilarity ensues. We call Chinese men unmasculine. We call Chinese women masculine. We call Indian men emasculate, we call Indian women, well, Indian women are hot as fuck, Jesus. We call the Colombian men macho, their women maternal (yet prone to Western consumerist wants), we call German women masculine and hyper-sexual, we call Australian women sluts. We say that American men are kept creatures (‘betas’) or empty skirt chasers with ‘game’ (‘alphas’). We say that American women, as gate keepers to the lead economic force, are selecting against the good of the family, and are leading their culture to ruin. (But what if we were at a zoo, and had zebras, elephants, lions, and monkeys in a cage, with just one name, ‘lion,’ or just one name, ‘animal.’ We would call the zebras very unlion lions: ‘they are ruining the lions with their unlion behavior.’)

But I do not think these American women have the power to do otherwise. They are weak creatures who follow trends, who deal in vicious gossip driven by deep-seated biological insecurities. How, then, do we call them gatekeepers, how then do we blame them for their sudden turn to fickle mate selection during their prime mating and breeding years?

It would be obvious and convenient to place blame on the ‘males’ for their being ‘unmanly.’ In the spectrum of gender attributes, the observation would be relatively meaningless. It would explain everything but reveal nothing. I would offer—and this point is perhaps consistent with Moraline’s observations, and pardon me if he as already offered this—that there is a simple economic advantage for wealth holders—the billionaires, the large hedge funds, etc.—to blend the gender roles, to mute competition, to raise levels of government to just the tipping point, to control and maintain their wealth, to maintain the perfect balance of human productive factors, to create the generation of autistics that Moraline speaks of. We blame men and women for this, indeed, but in many ways this is like the lions, in the zoo, blaming each other for their captivity.

http://us.singlemuslim.com/

Moraline's morning gift: rashaan roland kirk (commentary below)

"oh volunteered slavery, you don't know how it is to be free, you got
a spend all day in bed with me....." Shackles in the back
ground.......

Holy fucksake, this is up there with Danny Richmond with Mingus: "Why
are they so sick and ridiculous--Govenor Faubus fascist nazi
supreme!!!!!!!!"

Got a real Mingus big band feel to it--Jesus, as if it could be a
track on the same fucking album. Beatles---they break into Hey
Jude!!!!!!!!!!! Jesus, they are playing Hey Jude!!!!!!

Hard to listen to muu-sick anymore after being reminded of how good this shit is.

10,000 meters

American laps a Kenyan in 10,000 meters. 26:48.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt1sHQza_ww

Flux

A change in plans:
2 mile warm up
800 meters jog&stride
3200: 10:56
800 jog
800: 2:33
400 jog
400: 71
200 jog
400: 71
1200 meter jog

Total mileage: 7.125
Morning 3.6
Day's total 10.7125

Left hinge felt strange on warm up, but loosened up. No issue with hamstring though.

I've given up on thoughts. I have an idea about 'the other' but Moraline hates ontology and so I won't expound. I am going off to eat food now. No hunting of women, I'm through with that. I need my sleep. I'll run 3.6 in the morning and then either 7 or 10 with Chrome at night. 12 Sat morning with Shannon and then 15 on Sunday at high altitude. Running is my project. Nothing else really makes sense to me.

a project

This morning as the ghost of Moraline hovered over Denver, Western culture, and mingled with the lost souls of caleñas, I considered Sekota's maxim that we get what we want. When we are miserable and lost, we are getting what we want, because we are out of balance, not on any one path, because out of fear and a lack of force in action, we fail to choose, and so the time comes for the train, working at high speed, to choose among the tracks at the crossing, the train tears through the rails, deep into the dirt, careening into the granite face of the mountainside, exploding, all passengers horribly burned and dismembered. Each day begins and ends such.

When, due to a man's force of action, he can right his direction, his energies coalesce into a thing of great beauty and power. After my run this morning, as part of my program of 70 miles per week, as part of my program to break 1:17 on October 9th, I realized my energies should be focused on running the half marathon. Writing will only serve as a journal of my understanding of my passage from a slow runner to a faster runner. Writing will only serve running. Today I will run 6 1-mile repeats, with a 2 mile warm up and a 2 mile cool down. This morning I ran 3.6 miles at a 6:50 pace.

Giving up on Maximin

I remember when I first gave up on Maximin. It was September of 2011. He had learned nothing from Colombia. He clung to his desk job. He either let women lead him around, or he prided himself on leading around skanks. His writing was terrible. He operated in a sport run by women, most of them soccer moms. He began to get drunk alone--this was perhaps his greatest achievement in years. I kept trying to tell him he should kill himself, but he ignored my advice and ate cliff bars at night. He tried to connect with 20-something American women, but as anyone could have told him, they left him empty. Man, his last years were sad, there was a myth of a myth of a myth that a man gets what he wants, that a man creates a myth that he gets what he wants but only when there is a myth. Make the myth and dance in between the pillars of its foundation. Yeah, man, make that fuckin myth work for you.

A life as open as i can, brothers

Some factual tyranny real quick: Friday night went out to a high end speak easy downtown with Shannon (70 bill for 4 drinks and an appetizer)—it was fun, she looked beautiful, but this 26-year-old was taking me for a ride, plain and simple. She arrived on a bus from Westminster, I met her there, and that was one of the few smiles of the night—when she saw me at the station. She looked stunning—black satin short shorts, a sequin top, her hair braided and blonde and beautiful. But my game is off, I’m not her type, and I won’t chase, praise, or goad her ego. We went for some light fare and drinks then at Linger, and the space was great and a lot cheaper and we chatted until 1 but there was no chemistry, nothing, and I dropped her off at the bus station and that was that. No kiss, nothing. I woke up early the next morning, and headed to Breckenridge for a 5k trail run that I technically won but I ran off course and finished 7th officially but the race director gal who was hot along with the other blonde who was hot gave me what was officially the winner’s prize: a huge ceramic beer stein from Germany with two drink tickets for the Oktoberfest in Breck. I hung out with my parents in Breckenridge and we wandered the streets during the festival and I ran 14 on the dirt mining road and trails on Sunday, wandered more with the folks then hiked with them then ate dinner. I drank too much Fri-Sun but last night only had two beers, 1.5 of them at Park Tav with some greasy Mexican food, saw Chrome for but a moment at PT, he shared a beer and ate two tacos then had to buy peanut butter for Rogue then split I left too leaving half my beer on the table then ate some more food upon returning home—my appetite has increased lately with the miles—and got to sleep at a good time and slept in this morning till near 7:30. On Sunday night Erin came over round 8:30 and we drank some Breckenridge whiskey, wine, beer, I showed her my Colombian pictures, my folding bike, lots of things she hadn’t seen since the two of us had split, and we had some hot encounters in the kitchen, the couch, then the bed, maybe once at night and then twice in the a.m.—standard for us. There’s real sexual chemistry between us, but that’s it. One thing I notice about this quick rundown in the journal is how I feel—how it’s do damn clear—that I’m leaving out the meaning and all the good ideas surrounding these experiences. But I can’t sit and write about my life all day. Too busy getting out there. Too busy running off all the fucking greasy Mexican food I ate last night, for one. I’ll hit up 4 laps tonight—three with the Tue group and then one on my own.
While I was running on Sunday on the mining trail in Breckenridge at about 8:50 a.m. in the cool mountain breeze, I thought of how common “alien life” was in the Dr. Who television series—not artificial intelligence, but alien life. Who not tackle the problem of the other from this perspective? Alien life, rather than the simple minded and naïve set-up of the problem of the automaton? The automaton set-up just from the outset reveals our carbon ba-ed prejudices—why not just work with the idea that “otherness” is just foreign, but what it does have in common is our perception that the thing is spontaneous. Of course, Dr. Who makes it easy by giving his aliens the ability to either speak English or his characters the ability to translate—and here we assume that the language of the aliens is not so multilayered, rich, mysterious, and different, that we aren’t wiping out most of its meaning in translation—my biggest concern with alien language translation.

The other as enemy, as in situation. How does this compare to our fighting against the weather, that is to say, the elements, or an animal, such as a mountain lion?

10:02 Out for more hunting. A man gets what he wants.

Jesus

Cuando Jesús lloró, lloró por mí y yo solamente.

Plato, slices

Allison and Sasha were their names. Sasha was a Russian, Allison a redhead beaut--tall and thin and lithe, and she bought me a slice at 1 a.m. and then did what I normally do (she wandered off) and Sasha and I followed. The three of us spoke in Spanish the first part of the night (then in Russian-Bulgarian). This is because these girls go to South and Central America and live there--how dangerous, really, are these countries, when these girls go their in dresses and shorts and sandals? Hostels, their homes for their visits, are speed dating for fucking, and I don't blame them for the venue choice, because the feedback is immediate, the setting is quiet practical, and fucking is visceral--it gets way past that wobbly speaking movement which gets nobody nowhere.

My ears are ringing. God damn it my ears are ringing. I smoked a cigarette last night. Minor Threat serenaded these women. I say I can't write but now reading your work I realize why: what would I write about? How I can go to a bar, eat tacos, grab two girls, and wander and drink? That sounds like the soul-less march of Miami coke fiends. I'm not a coke fiend. I'll never be a coke fiend, unless it's with that yeh-yo flake you talk about. Maybe with that yeh-yo yellow flake golden ritual snort you speak about there Donnie.

Man, I trained with the guys that night too, but I chase these damn girls. Moraline saves the world, and I drive my Subaru each day to the deskjob and spend the fake currency on the booze that fuels the gatekeepers who let me in each night

God damn there captain your writing gets so many thinking about so many things. I mean my degeneracy is interesting, it can be good for a laugh or a read, but what the hell does it feel like to know your work is perennial? What a swagger it must give to a man. And you are with good people too, your family. Your trust them. They know you are progressing mankind singlehandedly in your basement. And I've been to that basement and can attest that it gives you no unfair advantage. Man, I should have gone home after the shot and the beers and the tacos, but I saw the redhead and her face melted the whole fucking place down, and I did what Chrome always did, I sat down and spoke as if I was continuing a long lost oral tradition.

I'm back now--that was my great and cleansing bowel movement of 7:42 a.m. Denver time. I do most of my work there, it's where I have a copy of the same damn books reading the same damn passages that get me nowhere, still on to fucking ontology when you've created a new way of accounting for the meaning of experience. What you've done here is injected this anthropology into the anemic discipline of the Frenchies and Krauts. Yeah, and you're taking on this culture like Miguel attacks the serpent, you know, the one from the bible. You are doing the work of so many men and so few men at the same time--so few men, because so few men really have affected world history--man, just think of Plato, just think if he had chosen to go to Park Tavern and go for late night slices instead of getting his work done? Man, think if he had to drive to work now. But she'll feel good when that long dress comes off. I don't think Plato ever felt that.

Cindy, the Slovenian, je je

Cindy

The cell phone, the ‘smart’ phone, didn’t work right in front of the place. I try calling Chrome and nothing gets out. Energy is the starting point for the ideas here—we’ve already said that language, much more than a messy bastard (cf. Moraline), is just one orginary experience that, out of our fear and the domination of others, has been programmed through indoctrination. And we know with the first sentence someone will jump the gun. The chef who pulls apart an animal, moves his arms in a ballet so that the animal falls apart before his eyes, has no strategy, but an art. We do not approach him as he is working.

The energy was disrupted because Cindy has been working with energy for some time. I didn’t know her address yet I walked right into the right building and, after one encounter with a woman who may well could have massaged me, I found Cindy. But the passive activity of massage is not what Cindy’s work is about—she likens her work to optometry, where the patient must judge what prism feels best, works best. The pelvis is the center of many things, or similar to the indoctrination of language, this is where she begins. Some osteopath figured things out about the body with energy—no doubt what he figured out was ancient, but there is no fucking ‘uncovering’ in anything: it’s as new now as it was then.

My proprioception is off, she tells, me; I told her how Charlie had a book with this title, how self perception is a big deal for me, how a lot of good thinking starts there, like how she starts with the pelvis. Moraline and I have battled about these starting points, but it may be like how you push off with your right foot if you are right handed—you must push with something, start somewhere, there cannot be a desperate quietism. I don’t know where the Colombians begin or which foot they push off with—it seems they’ve always been dancing, they’ve never stopped moving, they’ve always had that rhythm to them, they’ve never been looking for that new music to make all the salsa go away, but they may dance with some new rhythms if it feels right.

I am a man without a dance and a rythym—it embarrasses me in cultures where dance is how they lead themselves in the morning and through their sleep and in the fields, on the street with a girl, with a beer with a girl, dancing with a girl. If you have to mimic dance, if you must take lessons, if you must look for music, you are an orphaned soul and you have no parents, no family, your legs and arms and hips--your pelvis, the center of your energy, has no friends--and at night you sleep like Jayne alone and cold yet growing among the new stars. In other words, a man without dance is at once the saddest yet most hopeful occurrence in existence: He is nothing, but has the chance of orginary: when he finally dances---if he finally dances—he will share a universe patently strange, born as a star’s first breath of light, it will shine on a woman’s face and make her a queen, a man a pharaoh.

The Slovenian

The Slovenian was incredulous the New Yorkers could not imagine the flavor of sour milk—it’s like peanut butter in familiarity. There is a wheat, potato, and milk pastry from his village, far outside the capital, near the Ukrainian border. It has to be made there, for the energy, all the feelings, eyesight of the village, morning trash burning, sticks on fire mid day to boil tomatoes and peppers in the stew, chickens walking under drying clothes, and a gypsy's final day: wander for scraps, maybe better, maybe a harcover book read in a dry undisrupted forest free from summer fires. He protected an explosives depot at home when in the military, Iraq was worse than Serbia at that time because it probably meant some fighting, the Croatians wiped out many Serbs in the second war, plus they were Nazis, so pay attention to how ‘bad’ the Serbs really were, was his point, listen well, measure these images you have been given: why were the serbs so pissed off? Why would they do so many ‘bad’ things? Very small compared to the 40s, you have no idea, he meant.

Who is chasing who?

“Je je.” Not a laugh of joy but what we call ‘irony,’ that lament that we know what’s happening but we do not send it back more forcefully in the opposite direction. Yes, N., indeed we both want to run away from each other, yet one seems to chase, and one moves to the dry rocks of the reservoir to the sun at the foothills of summer and autumn. A woman can only be on top for so long before I think of my next meal or climb through the rocks that leads to the meadow.

Mountain

There's a big mountain on top. Men race up to the top on their bicycles. At the end, some starve for more violence. Some starve for soft breasts, soft asses, tongues of women. Some fight wars with rifles and die quick. Some die in the sun. Some die in the winter.

Jayne

Away at night

When Jayne died, death became typical, numb as groceries. Every day a drive down the highway, on our horses, there, see the coffee, it surrounds us, each day not measured but strained through burlap, waiting for boiling water, no moments of sleep at night, she’s there when she’s not there, in the Andes I escape her, she can’t make it up La Linea, that you can’t fake, that I do myself, no one follows me on the descent. And there is no music anymore, no speech, no kisses, no real sitting, no reading, no gazing, no tender breathing, because when she’s gone she’s gone. She cannot be gone. She had her bicycle and she was to show it to me the next week. She felt ill at night and she was trying to figure out what was wrong. She was alone and wasn’t in bed. She was sitting by herself gazing at the nighttime internet. Damn it she was in no one’s arms. How fucked up to be one with the night, how fucked up to have no space from the stars, how fucked up to never begin or complete, how fucked up to have fought time and won, now the victory is so fucking cold, nothing moves, there’s no climbing left, there’s nothing to reach, there is no up or down or beginning or end, man there’s fucking nothing. What a way to go. A new star now.

I can't find Jayne

I noticed I mix everything together, I have no boundaries, my lists and my feelings and the ‘facts’ I put down or forget to put down, man, there is no great god looking at me with one perspective—each moment is held up by effort, there is no record, no history, no time, no days, no hours, no love, no her or them or there, no car, no green Subaru, the green Subaru, the green man, Evanston in the summer, Buda in winter and the green fields in the fall. Something can land there, at one time they did. Each time these thoughts come to you, they’ll never come back, they’re different passengers each time they visit, sometimes they age, sometimes they die, sometimes they visit you as they are dying, sometimes they are sick or old or young, sometimes these thoughts have amnesia, they come to you lost, looking for the last place they lived:

“What was all around me before I forgot everything? Where is that building, where, where do they serve the white wine in winter outside the villamos stop, where do the workers drink and smoke? I’ll just stay with you until I remember everything once again, I’ll just stay with you for now, your bed is soft, your hair smells good, your shoulders tan so well, your breasts look at me perfectly, but I trouble you, I trouble you, I’m so bad for you but I’m bad for myself, there is no good or hope or wonder left, yet I’m so happy and lost and forgotten, the woods have never been steeper, I’ve never run quicker to the fire, I was here before they killed the tress, I was here before the path, I was here before suburbia landed, I was here when I climbed and peeked from the boulders, I’ve been here all along but you just haven’t noticed me.”

And by constantly writing there is a strength. What do you really hold on to when you create? What do you really give, she says there is a sadness, that I’m not getting any where, but I’m not going anywhere, no, I am looking, yes, I am seeing things now, I am seeing these things. The wrong creatures say the worst things.

Sitting and thinking

728. Two Macedonian goat herders are on top of a mountain. The master approaches them. “You lazy bastards, what are you doing there, just sitting and thinking?” “We are just sitting,” replied the goat herders.

729. The cripple in his special chair, for the first time in years, wheels himself to the West side of the room. He sees the mountains. Ideas flourish, they are accounted for, they spread seeds of his great exploration to ‘sitters’ and ‘explorers.’ A new paradigm of possibilities is awakened in human thinking.

730. Exploration and sitting, indeed, are dialectically dependent: greatness of exploration relative to what is overcome. A fierce climber who still chooses to sit when his time is up in the chair, when he has had his rest, and he knows it. The cripple who makes it to the West side of the room when others had written him off as a vegetable.

Moraline's "Corrida at Malaga"

I remember the ear as if it were my own, sliced by battle. I do not remember the lost years, but, but the living years. How you chased girls in Croatia, how you ran with bulls and then brought to Spain a true fan of the great battle and sport. Yes, your tail of sailing off a cliff in the desert of Spain, landing on thistles, concussion, broken ribs, covered in blood, slowly and painfully truing a wheel, a farmer giving you bandages, and sleeping in a room with a head injury alone for a week. How many meaningless years go by before we realize just a few memories are all that matter, but not a few memories but the journey that led to them, the courage to toss comfort into the bull fight and not only kill this soft comfort but to get it to fight back, to pierce it multiple times, to get it to bleed, to slice off comfort's ear, and to kill it with a clean sword, walk away, then journey to the next fight.

Morning

on being a champion

It is difficult to recall being a champion--it is painful. All champions fade or eventually fail, and the feeling of winning is often paired with the feeling that, indeed, what was just achieved is the highest watermark. Suddenly, there is the cold sea once again in winter, and the fields in which you claimed victory and now wet and cold and frozen. Your moment winning is now gone. Now the roads are empty, and it will be difficult to ride into town. You may as well freeze, because this will feel better than the memory of being a champion.

Garzon to San Agustin

To ride into a city: go through the main drag, through the 'center' of town, and despite fatigue, need for protein, need for water, need for rest, be tough and focused. You have to let the main drag end, ride one block to the left, double back two blocks, and then zip-zag that pattern for three blocks, then cross back over the main drag and hit it up 3 blocks same pattern. This may seem too much at the end of the day, but you get a few things:
1) You see more of that city than a tourist over most days. You not only got your hotel without settling for the tourist trap, you saw your groceries, eating hole, street food, ladies, churches, places of god all around.
2) You bless the city, for yourself, you made it known you are welcome here. You earned it. Backpackers don't earn their miles. They must walk back for their do-over. Then they might earn their "back-packs"--what the fuck they need in that big ass bag.
3) The town square and the side street have the women at night hustling for their men. If you know the language and culture, you're not a foreigner, you're a new man to these women. Welcome.
4) You see the areas where you might not want to hit up alone at night. This is a tough call, and notice I don't say 'good' or 'bad' parts of town. These are the best places, especially if you subscribe to Moraline's take on the failed state--Moraline points out that you see the real beginnings and genesis of man and culture in the failed state and even more so in the outskirts of the failed state, like in Cali all along the edges of the military airport (I have never been, didn't have the time, but Alejandro pointed it out). It's a tough call because it's best to wander into these places and let people judge your heart. If it is good and open, you might make it. Let's take a look at this, because it seems counterintuitive, and if you haven't been to a gypsy ghetto at 2 a.m. in the dark in Sofia, where all tough Bulgarians say don't go, then you maybe don't realize that the only thing you come packing with is your heart. Think of it this way: Chopper Reid can take 5 men, if he is lucky, if he has the fight of his life. But if he's in a village, no escape, too many men, a whole clan and tribe loyal to one another, what does he do? He brings his heart. Many people will never get this, and think it's naive. But people will judge your heart. One of two things happens, no, three. One, they spit you out because you should not have come. You leave with less or more, depending on how you see it, but you can get roughed up, harassed, robbed, beaten. Second option is that they leave you alone because you have a good heart and want to pass through and they leave it at that. Maybe it's late at night, very late, and no one is up and no one should be awakened. It's a compliment to your heart if this happens. Third option is that you are welcomed and accepted into the 'dangerous' neighborhood. You will never grow stronger ties or stronger friendships. They sense what your risking but they also sense you want friendship with all types of humans and although you do want to learn their story and although the language difference is there, they can see you you observe and learn and do not judge and human beings can feel when they are being treated as an equal human being, when you look at people and seem no differently.

The point of cycling then is to see the rough places, go into them, and have your heart evaluated. If you can learn a new village or barrio, you will have the sweetest prize of any explorer.

a tourist

The city is new to me now. I see it as a place and people, not a history, not a context, not a country. I am a Colombian set free in a fancy place--fancy on its own terms, organized, mostly gringo. "Hay mucho gringo," that's how the cop in San Agustin said it.

So Chrome and his entourage hit up the Garage and CB just ran the fucking show there, classed up the joint, chargin fewer pesos than is even reasonable, which always wins him a proprio grande.

Everyone was there, one of Moraline's Amazing Nights. A fellow asked if he could borrow the cognac glass for a sample he had picked up at a tasting, and he emptied most of his tasting in the cognac bottle and generously provided the rest to me.

I went to follow Chrome's entourage to PT, but then realized the beautiful blonde who had passed me an hour earlier and told me to ride with her in the night. I followed the night's skyline to the capital where thousands of riders rode in parade formation. I rode with them, my left hand steering and braking the only working brake and my right hand with my camera.

I stopped for some cognac off Speer and we rode for miles, all of us, I weaved through pueblos and ciudades and pueblitos, and everyone was different, all formed villages that lasted for minutes or hours or seconds, I crossed and passed and waited and rode with thousands, and the brown hair blew and the blonde hair was swept into my face the the dark black curly hair made it across her shoulders and over to her neck and then across her face again, some voices sweet, some tired, it was now 1:15, but the day was beginning. Near Vine and 17th I had picked up a flask of Jim Beam and shared it with riders as we weaved through the streets--the same course I race in many races, it was a homecoming, and Jim Beam refreshes everyone.

Eventually time disappeared, people called my name, I spoke to them, many I knew, some were new, I danced on the pedals through the crowd and into the night and carried my bicycle on my shoulder, up my stairs, into my new hotel, knowing to check my maps in the morning in this new city, in this foreign land that has welcomed me.

Never question a good ninja

I was perplexed at Miguel's chasing of women. Was it aimless, was it fruitless, at times it seemed his project existed simply to get women, and then at other times it was clear his project dominated his life, comprised his life. I had noted earlier that Miguel's project consisted of an alignment of values, a concept Moraline introduced. But what about the girl chasing? What about how he would observe how his ninjutsu, how his television ads for his dojo, were making him popular in the clubs?
I was sceptical, not judgemental, just sceptical, and had little time to reflect during my journey.

But he possesses a total alignment of values, and one of his key values is to have a son, and for this he must mate, and to mate he must find a woman, and if they are running after him in herds (they are) his job is easy. If women love him for his ninjutsu, and ninjutsu is his true passion, his project that is his life and dominates his moments, then women love him for his complete alignment of values--they are magnetized to his authenticity. He may well be an ethically perfect man.

So I will never judge a good ninja. A black ninja I shall judge and condemn and fight to the core. But a good ninja will fool you in the right and correct ways. Miguel can sense a man through a wall. He can avoid trouble and danger. He listens to the words and worlds of others and will make predictions.

Fever, pain, climbing, jungle

The fever is just now starting to break. I am so dizzy I cannot stand for more than a minute at a time. I feel bad that I cannot run with Chrome, but I cannot stand, so if I were to run with Chrome, I would have to stand for 1 minute, then fall down, then repeat--it would take a long time and it would be something other than running. The beautiful women at the forest would think Chrome had a retarded uncle.

Pain, as the short frenchman said, does not exist in the mountains or on the roadside or in the baskets of apples we browse at the market. As I cursed the mountains for yet another stretch of ascents, as the rain and mist and fog rolled in yet once again, the pain and fear and agony I felt did not, as I saw it, exist. I had to focus on the beauty of the mountains, on the prospect of a small village with wisdom that would cleanse my western mind. The main I felt was a phantom disease, yet this phantom disease, this fake thing that doesn't exist in the world to the right or to the left of this boulder which has fallen in to the roadside, is what typically drives the decisions and fears of many men.

What was Chrome's breaking point in the Castle? What was Moraline's breaking point on the ripio and in the wind? What were the coordinates of these breaking points, in their fakeness? Is this what we learn from suffering--that in our journeys, pain can never break us, because pain is is a fake basket of bread we carry with us which weighs us down without ever feeding us?

Today's climbing:part1