OK. Here we go.

Once, when driving home from Montana after that first summer in Glacier Park. The Summer I met Cole and the Jesus freaks, and Steph, who saw me in the bar just off the south end of the reservation and claimed me despite clear instability. The summer Joe and I pulled up to the park concessioners with no plan and no prior contact at the apex of where we ran out of gas, money, food and ideas. The summer, after driving clear to Phoenix straight out of New Brunswick immediately following my final written exam. After sleeping on park benches roadside with a can of mace and an 18” blade under a pillow of balled up underwear. The summer after driving highway 1 clear from LA up through the Olympic peninsula, stopping only to camp or visit the bars and play pool in search of a sign. After repairing the piece of shit Escort in 118 degree heat right out of the gates in Phoenix, after Joe’s far more reliable vehicle had been repo’d despite valiant efforts to mask its location and identity. Back in the summer when I collected the address of every acquaintance fully intending to maintain consistent personal relationships with each of them as the years passed. The summer Cole and I hiked clear through hole-in-the-wall pass, camped in the valley some 12 miles below with failed cooking gear, lack of warmth and general unpreparedness, re-ascending in the heat of the northern summer sun over permanent snow fields and deep streams on blistered feet, ankles swollen from mosquito bites, clear out running the final 4 miles in the rain unannounced into Canada, Cole’s virgin trip to foreign soil. That Summer when driving east between Billings and the North Dakota Badlands I picked up a hitchhiker along route 90, dropped him off at the following exit after sensing a madness and continued the remainder of the way silent, alternating the radio between pop, metal and AM talk as the signal took.

Barend (Big B) called back. He always calls twice. He’ll ring the cell, I don’t answer, the phone stops ringing, two minutes later the voice mail buzzes, I click to acknowledge, immediately he tries again, the phone buzzes four times or so and I answer. “Barend, how are you?” “Hi Daniel, I’m well. How’s the weather there? How’s the weather there in Rochester?” This is how my grandmother used to answer, “How’s the weather there in X?” “Oh, it’s beautiful here. It went from winter to fecund and gorgeous and it’s been just beautiful for about two weeks now.” “So what’s happening with your case?” “I’m a born again Christian now.” Uh oh. “Oh yea?!” “That’s good, you find some folks to talk to then?” “Do you remember that guy Leigh?” “He used to hit me and be angry with me and I never said anything to anyone about that and I think I got angry because I never said anything about that.” Leigh and Barend showed up unannounced one day in Jackson Hole. It was an awkward time, I had just moved into a rented room in a cabin in Wilson on the road out to the mountain village after my girlfriend had left and was uncomfortable about everything. Those guys stayed the night, Leigh puked in the bathroom. The next morning I sent them off and scrubbed the house down from fear. That Leigh guy was definitely not right. I felt so bad that when Jane returned (the owner, well the girlfriend of the owner, Becky, who was in school in Boulder at the time) I told her and we weren’t right after that. Way to start a new life. “Yea, like one time I told Leigh not to pick the pine nuts and to stay in the car and he went and picked the pine nuts and I told him not to but he just never listened and he picked the pine nuts and then he got caught and yelled at and he just walloped me one for no reason.” “I mean I told him to just stay in the car but he got out anyway and I didn’t deserve to get hit for that.” “No way. No one deserves to get hit Barend unless you both agree to fight.” “Do you pray?” he asks. “Yes I pray,” I tell him. “I go to church sometimes but not always, but I pray.” “Well, I pray now and I ask for help from Jesus.” Demons hit my mind. Despite this, I couldn’t for the life of me be anything but supportive. “That’s good.” “We have fellowship after church and I go down there and not everyone stays but I stay and we have fellowship after.” “Well that’s good Barend. It sounds like you have some new friends to talk to and you are working things out.” “Yea, I’m just looking forward now.” “She dropped the assault charge but I can’t leave the state for two years so I won’t be going anywhere.” “Are you coming out here anytime soon?” I go through my usual roundabout to the tune of I want to and may be but I won’t know because I could be back in Florence in the fall and I’ve got a bunch to work out but I want to. So I could be out there within the year but it depends on how things work out here. I felt depressed. “You know if I come out we are going to have to spend a few days, maybe hike or something, have a few beers.” “Yea,” Barend says laughing. “Well, it sounds like you are on your way to something new. Talking about things. You gotta keep doing that.” Then we shoot the shit for a while, run over the same ground. “Well, I shouldn’t keep you from what you were doing.” He always says this when it’s time to go. “It’s Ok Barend. We’ll talk again soon so.” Then we hung up.

mediadadabarofsoapintheshowerbar, on occasion of cleaning amongst the drives in angst

video still, making music with a hammer and tuning fork, 440 cycles, with mirrors

In June I am migrating the blog off of myspace to here: blogspot. It is also linked from my home site under 'info' here: © Primrosé ltd. 2007. For the remainder of the month blog content will be mirrored on both sites.

I'm leaving myspace due to excessive porn solicitation. I'm amazed at how many bitches are willing to sell their bodies?! When all else fails, use your cunt... I guess...

Burly Men

Dick Balls pranced around the Abbey after he shit on the lawn and after he spilled the coffee over the front seat, map and Jacket. He’s totally fine until you turn his back on him. I needed to get out of town, to church of some sort. We were two, that was enough and the dog and another woman (possibly the Porter). We three sat in that chapel for a good hour, listening to the rain fall, watching the candle through its red glass enclosure, smelling the incense burn as it mixed with the raw earth. My prayer was mostly a confession of pain, I wasn’t angry with god or the like but I hurt. The presence of my self in any way was disturbing so my thoughts drifted there and I ended up thinking about that. Like, I’m selfish and I know I’m selfish and I’ve thought of “I” about four times now since ‘I’ started praying and fuck there ‘I’ go again, God damn it, shit ‘I’ didn’t mean that in vain but it was, ‘I’ was…, Fuck ‘I’ can’t stop the ‘I’ thing, how about those people killed today, the ones in Idaho or Bagdad, yes ‘I’ll think of those, shit me again, can’t escape it, ‘I’ love you ‘I’ love you ‘I’ love you, shit, love you love you love you love you, love love love love love love love love love love love. Only more tortured and private and it wasn’t really torture, it was more of a gift. We didn’t see any monk except for a brief moment when one poked his head through the rear door of the chapel then turned and left abruptly as if he had forgotten something. Distracted, I looked at the structure of the place, the brilliance of the stone and wood. Earthen things feel right. I looked for a good long time listening still to the rain and then to Sara’s stomach gurgling for lack of food and then mine and the little fart I let escape that sounded more like a gong in that finely crafted hall. As I followed each beam from its joist down to and over the stone I spied a camera watching over the alter. Must be someone’s artwork but I knew it was security. It would be better as artwork, I thought. It was tempting to feel violated by it. I mean, I was fairly certain there was no surveillance equipment in the restroom although it would have been justified to capture the brilliance of the red tile and the serenity of the place even when shitting (which I had been). There it was, a camera protecting the solid investment of catholic propriety. I looked to Sara, nodded and we left. On the way to the heavy gilded wooden doors I caught the headline of the catholic publication, “Spitzer’s Abortion Amendment Decried!” Jesus Fucking Christ. Did I just think that. There ‘I’ go with the ‘I’ again. Lord’s name in vain. Abortion. Babies. Too much. Clear that shit out. Fuck. Love love love love love love love love love love love love…

The rain cleared, poked through a shifting gray sky and birds were chirping and cooing songs just as we exited those heavy doors. I recalled the psalm I had read earlier in the waiting room, hand written in clear ornate calligraphy, Psalm 25, with a bic blue ink ‘25’ scrawled in the top left corner. Teach me your paths… Pardon my guilt… Consider how many are my foes… I wait for you… Redeem Israel… and the like. Redeem Israel. I looked at my Teva sandals, Israeli. I looked up at Sara, half Jew. Schwabby, a Rabbi now, my good friend, the man who officiated my marriage, who read the book of Ruth to my then fiancé and I in the days when the Mormon boys came knocking. The man who gave me “As a Driven Leaf” by Milton Steinberg that warned of the dangers of losing faith. A story where, in the end, a faithless Rabbi who lost his path, is forgotten and literally has his ass hanging out of a shallow grave as lightening strikes his debauched lifeless corpse. Impossible tasks handed down through generations over impossible odds. Guilt, a weapon. The shame of where my wife may be, the shame of losing faith, losing control. The shame of letting good men down who carry impossible tasks and the uselessness that follows. “Babe!” I look up and smile but my shoulders are hunched from stress and I know she knows. “Let’s go see Letchworth.” That was the original plan anyway.

At Letchworth the attendant handed a park map, a receipt and a bone shaped cookie for the dog through the window of the Cadillac with a smile. “The civil war reenactment starts in half an hour, 2 miles up the road.” We pulled away munching on chips and headed straight for it. I read Sara the brochure and added in my own information in the same tone and style. “As you hike these powerful and ancient lands beware the dangers of this unique landscape. Be on the lookout for ticks, chiggers and burly men. Burly Men have been known to tackle and violate unsuspecting hikers especially in early season before the thick mane of manhair has shed.” “Thursdays and alternate Tuesday’s are fag friendly. Look for the rainbow colored flag at all park entrances. Burly Men will be more active on such days so please take extra precaution while visiting your state park during these times.” “Your good at that,” Sara said laughing. “I know. I should write brochures or something.” When we got to the battle the canons were already firing. We took Goose to the front line and he was unfazed by the noise of the canons, guns and horses. He must be a war animal. I thought of him in Japanese armor, Kurosawa style. The battle was amazing really. The guys that do this look a lot like I imagined Burly Men to look like. They fired muskets and canons and made formations for a good hour on the battle field. Gun powder was everywhere. I looked down at my painted toenails and felt a twinge of panic as I looked back up the ropes at leather skinned patriotic women, and men, caps in hand, children close about, observing the battle fiercely. When it was done and after the horses were finished prancing (which is in some way always hilarious to me) we headed back to Roc so Sara could make work on time and I could read papers and set about some type of plan for the next week or month or lifetime.