weekend and the fish

WARNING: this post may change as i get my pictures back.

there was one place i wanted to be this weekend and it was about a four-hour drive away from where i ended up - but you know, what I had a fantastic (if painful) time anyway.

saturday was the six-month anniversary of Hunter S. Thompson's suicide and he was flying high for the last time. so while the hanger-ons, revelers and hullabaloos where crowding around Aspen CO to memorialize a strange character in US history and his equally strange Gonzo Journalism (the fist is two feet taller than the statue of liberty, by the way) - we - my brother, his girlfriend, Hamlet and I - were having our own little ceremony.

(drunken girl, fire & camera = a potentially dangerous situation)

this involved a roaring camp fire, blackened catfish, jack daniels, old chub, gravity and song (ok, no singing, but it fits nicely in the memory). my bro and i toasted many a drunken time to that infamous outlaw and i paid my tribute by falling off a rock (many times) and nearly knocking myself out on a chair(don't ask). the afternoon rain had left enough mud to get my new hiking boots dirty and even though i deserve one, i didn't end up with a black eye.

before sunset and this drunken carrying on, we off-roaded a bit in a truck nearly too big for the jeep-trails, karate-kicked burned-blackened stumps of trees and shot each other with paintball guns in an improvised game of king of the hill.

by the time sunday came around i was hungover, bruised, battered and disoriented, but happy - happy we didn't accidently set forest aflame, happy to be out of the house for a few days, happy that i had some good camp-coffee and breakfast burritos to wake up to, happy to be alive and in nature and if you think that sounds cheesy, you're really weird.

fishy fishy fish; this is quite a tasty dish....

in the glow of elvis costello's voice, thanks to tesco, and on the off-handed comment of a co-worker, i have discovered the meaning of the universe.

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn;
Wire, briar, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock.
One flew east,
And one flew west,
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.

ok, so maybe not the universe but it was a nice thought. what i really found was this site, and it made me think. often faerytales and folk tales, like those in the Brothers Grimm collections, were told to children to "encourage" them to behave and to teach them how to survive in the wilderness.

these stories spread adages like: "don't talk to strangers", "don't take apples from crazy old women", "always pay the piper", and "never trust anyone with a title like grand-vizier". they also shared such useful tips as: if you're wandering in the woods it's a good idea to mark a trail, but don't use bread crumbs, and: learn to recognize the difference between your grandmother and a wolf, it could save your life.

Georgie Porgie, puddin' and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.

History: This rhyme refers to the amorous and amoral Prince Regent who became George IV during Regency times in England.

however, from many of the historical notes attached to these and other nursery rhymes, it seems that these rhymes were way to teach children how to make fun of nobles and the reigning monarchy, without them finding out.

perhaps these rhymes are the secret signs of the rebel army of children (must be less than this tall to join) that spread fear and jump-ropes across mediaeval Europe and overthrew many a sandbox-king. i have been looking for solid proof of this army for a long time and though i have long known of it's existence, this is the most significant evidence i have ever come across. AH-HA internet, i shall soon become the most well-renowned archaeologist of my age!

Ring a-round the roses,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down!

In other news, they found the plague in prairie dogs in north Boulder, CO - this will make many people very happy, because they've spent a lot of legislative time and money over the last 10-15 years trying to figure out just what to to do with these cute little nasty pests.

Buddha Fish

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
"Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
"Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
"Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
"Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
"But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." --Gautama Buddha

exquisite simul-fish corpse

here is our collaboration - this is an exquisite corpse - this means one person writes two lines, folds the paper over so that only one line shows passes it on, the next person writes two lines and folds the paper so that only the last line shows then passes it on; repeat. this can be done with any number of people and often each first line has to rhyme with the one before, but as jenn see will surely point out, i cheat.

the lines in italics are jenn see's.

Boulder, CO - August 12; 5 p.m.ish
an automated voice thanks me for a series of numbers
"Rhyme if you like" she says, & i go under
to follow fish in my tiki-torch submarine
but i was thinking of this ahead of time
& there are rotations of songs, her voice singing sublime
slightly atonal but sincere, turning conversations
tuning realizations but there are songs in the leaves
and creatures hiding behind colors playing trees
mischievous in their hues, determined in their decrees.
solid & 3-D in this mutable temperature & light
transitional before the alter of fracture, and i am
still waiting for the sun to soak oils in this canvas
& always crossing fingers that combustion escape the endless
summer sundown, but this afternoon the threat of thunder--
summer sundown, but this evening on the tundra
the butterflies have ceased their chaos-heart beat
distinctive wings folded in the mountain altitude heat
posing for a moment in the trials of tiki transformation
"ah, back to the sub," she sighs in imminent illumination
and "i've never been much for rhymes" i think but
on exquisite occasions I wonder, without them, what
continuity would persist but the unlikely schedule
and errant flings, conspiring against our different level
of trying out puzzle-piece symmetry and old connection
& the essential jigsaw of reminiscence--I look to the resurrection
of understandings & these talismans of lavender hard-cover
so we strive to discover wire-sewn butterflies within
pages and pages of past we've created, to gaze at
mile-high cities that are not so high, after all, & an ancient cat
winks to me that all quiet times have an end, & many doors still open
into history's future--but we will still share this pen.

regular fish-programming

so i realize that the fish has been a bit lax lately - since jenn see came out to visit me - but worry not, we were off doing things to fish about. but now that she has returned to her life and i to mine, the fish will return to its regular scheduled programming:

mysfit trimming jenn see's hair

moving the superhero fish - part um?

I know many of you are waiting on the edge of your monitors for an update on my moving endeavor, but this isn't the full version. Brace yourself as we travel back in time to last Sunday. This really should be called:

THE MOVING DISTRACTION-FISH

After a gruelling Saturday of realizing that I have too much stuff and not enough time to go through it all before throwing it in boxes and dragging it four blocks, we decided to go to a rodeo. For those of you who do not remember the old west or cowboys or even what a horse looks like here's a picture:

Cheyenne, Wyoming - proud home of the Cheyenne Frontier Days: "the Daddy of 'em All" - a rodeo tournament that lasts a week, and has every year since 1897. For those of the rodeo-persuasion, this tourney is the second most prestigious in the country - cause it has the second largest reward pay-out of all the events on the rodeo circuit. It also hosts one of the best old west museums.

My favorite was the clown:

(yes, he's waving at me - that made me very happy)

Outside the arena was a gala of leather and lights - a boardwalk without an ocean - I kept expecting when I got to the end of the carnival strip of games and rides, that I would be able to walk onto the pier, take off my shoes and wade into the cool(cold) water of the Atlantic Ocean - but of course, I was in Wyoming. (Just in case you were wondering - Wyoming is a looooong way from the Atlantic, something like 2500 miles away).
I was going to post these pictures on the tourist, but the only talent I have with pictures that rivals jenn see's ability to take photographs, is my ability to edit them. (This isn't a complaint - sometimes I take gems as well, just not as often.)
before editafter edit
(yay disappearing people)
Yes, the carnival had a fun house. It's been years since I've even seen an attempt at one of these and though it was kinda lame, it had a small mirror maze (I've been drawn to these strange infinities ever since I saw Something Wicked This Way Comes as a child).

All in all, the day was hot and pleasant - I got drunk on cheap beer, was amused at all the cowboy hats, and watched a bunch of macho men try to prove that they really are smarter than your average side-of-beef. I also scared myself silly on this ride:

But mostly, I spent the day avoiding any thought of the room I had not yet cleaned, of the boxes sitting stacked in my new living room/dining room/bedroom, of the fact that I can't find anything, despite my four-tier system, and just enjoyed myself immensely.

episodes of strange and unusual fish - part 3.5

                   never fly standby on a sunday
                 (probably a fractured faerytale)

tom waits is a strange looking beast—
           he inspires such raging thought-cacophonies

           that i breathe newness into every O2 molecule
            slipping past swollen throat to seethe through
                                        lungs and infect my blood—
                                freeing force to universe to create to

                                                      go mad

i’ve broken free of florescent madness
                                            and neon sacraments
leaving behind twelve-hour airport adventures
                                            and empty glass rings

i never knew just how your carnivalesquence carved guitars
from the gears of my internal clock
           so you talk to strangers setting questions like fruit cocktails
           as i tap my foot to nick cave on 30,000ft of wind whipping
                                                      dreams of striking it rich in

vegas looked the other way and i slipped by
invisible between the flashing machine-molecules
                                            and rainbow reverberations
if i look back (i can almost feel elvis chasing me):

“this airport operates at a high level of security.
 you can help increase the effectiveness of the
 airport                security                 program
 by following a few
                           simple
                                     procedures”
“Thank you for your Cooperation”

 so i clutch my few simple possessions
 and Cooperate with—
                             the counting crows string sentiments
                             inside my otherwise strung-out subconscious:
          “Well mister, if you're going to walk on water
                   Could you drop a line my way?”

i nod in time with the potted plot, the beat and
       “now my chin falls on my breast,
       i pray that this in not a test,
       but if in vegas when i wake,
       i pray the dream my mind to take.”