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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 9, 2017 - 11:28pm PT
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And speaking of Earl, here's his pic of the Big Stone.
I apologize for the slash crossing the Dihedral Wall. It is part of the finished photo for better or worse. At least Earl didn't use White-Out on it.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2017 - 04:07am PT
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As a result of a vast and complicated manhunt,
I have had information today concerning the whereabouts of
Mark "Bullfrog" McAllister, a genuine original Flame.
He was seen in Kentucky by a former brother-in-law of mine named
Joe La May, who went by the professional name of McKinley as part
of the guitar duo, McKinley and Smith, originally known as La May
and McAllister. That sighting took place in 2012, according to Joe.
Joe says that Mark was living on a boat in Martinez, CA, at the time
and was only visiting Kentucky. Joe was enlisted in the Air Force
when they were partnered. Not the Ginger Baker Air Force, but the SAC one.
He never knew Dolt, though both had the privilege of serving at
Castle AFB but years apart.
I haven't talked with Joe but only found his mention of Bullfrog on
the Merced Music website. Our Town's being the center of the known
rock 'n' roll universe has its advantages.
https://mercedmusic.wordpress.com/
Joe went to Woodstock with my sister-in-law-to-be, Valerie. They had it easier than some as Joe's family lived in Buffalo, NY. I've never been to NY state, but that's probably like saying "As long as you're gonna be in Sacramento, come see us in Fresno."
DMT, Tina sez "Hi, handsome. Remember me?"
1969.[Click to View YouTube Video]
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2017 - 05:08am PT
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Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
For Jack Kerouac the West was crucial. He became for a magic interval the archetype’s chosen voice, and registered its vibrations as few before him succeeded in doing.
As Seymour Krim has written:
‘In this propitious environment Kerouac found a number of kindred neo-Buddhist,
antimaterialist, gently anarchistic youn Americans whom he would have never
come across in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia; they discussed and brooded upon
philosophy and religion with him (informally, but seriously) and brought –all of
them together with Kerouac the populizer—a new literary-religious possibility into
the American novel that anticipated more technical studies of Zen and presaged a
shift in the intellectual world from a closed science-oriented outlook to a spiritual
and existential approach.’”
--written by William Everson
And who is William Everson, you ask? I had to ask that when I came upon an article in the SF Examiner’s Centennial edition from 1987, found in a local antique shop. The article is entitled “The Everson Thesis: In the Shadow of Muir.” Mr. Everson was a printer and poet and cast a tall shadow in San Francisco in the past.
Here is the beginning of the article. The newspaper section, eight pages long originally, is missing pages 3 through 6, but the introductory passages are complete.
“In February of 1970, Brother Antoninus, a Dominican monk recently resigned from the order, settled into a house at Stinson Beach for a big read. In his many years wearing the monk’s habit, Brother Antoninus had won fame as a poet and a printer. Now, free from the weight of the cloth, he took his old name, William Everson, and took on a new, most challenging assignment: to read all the works of the Pacific Coast’s greatest writers—and the carpings of the Eastern Higher Critics—to define that elusive quality tat gives Western writing its distinctive, nettlesome place in world literature.
“Everson found that the Western writers—particularly the Bay Area writers—had formulated the archetypal myths of America—cowboys and Indians from Bret Harte, detective fiction from the likes of Dashiell Hammett, New Age sexuality and Eastern Religious influence from the Beats.
“Surprisingly, at the center of Brother Antoninus’ universe is John Muir, the American secular saint who served the God of Nature.
“Everson’s thesis is that the archetypal California writer—particularly the classic Bay Area writer—is by religious inclination pantheistic, by political preference democratic, and by cultural persuasion pluralistic and diverse. He experiences nature not as a refuge, as did Eastern writers like Thoreau and Emerson, but as an encounter through which real understanding of the world might be found.
“He found a dozen Northern California writers, headed by Muir, whose literary soul is a combination of the native American pantheism and the violent encounter with nature, and later, society, who together create the clear voice of this distinctive literary region.”
Everson writes of Muir:
“Nature is divine, or so the American Soul has always said. And it was Muir who, more than anyone else, confirmed this intuition, spelled out its potentiality, brought it to concrete specification. Perhaps, given the pragmatic American temper, this could only have been done by a scientist, and not a poet or a novelist. Muir lacked the instinct into violence which the First World War would precipitate, yet he shaped the platform out of which that intuition could emerge. It is almost enough to say that until Muir had written, Jeffers could not speak.”
I am guessing that Everson included Robinson Jeffers in his dozen Western masters. Besides Muir and Kerouac, he profiled Bret Harte, Alan Ginsberg, and Frank Norris. The rest of the pack is missing along with the center of the newspaper section, so there’s no telling who they were.
If I can find out, I’ll share it.
Here are two links for William Everson. The second is part of the first.
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/everson/everson.htm
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/everson/exhibit.htm
As to the author/journalist who wrote the Thesis article, I don't know. It may well have been the then-editor of The Examiner, Warren Hinckle.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2017 - 08:36am PT
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I have been checking out Season Two of The Crown on Netflix.
I came across this Burroughs riff in The Beat Book and thought it pretty cool.
I thought it might be better received than my post about Colorado climbing from the other day...one comment. Fah! So here.
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throwpie
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 10, 2017 - 10:59am PT
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Flame Bulldog
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2017 - 11:02am PT
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A Short Bit of Recent History
In the days following the end of the Trump Era
but before the rise to power of the snowflake generation
bears all but disappeared in the world
I was then selling pajamas to fat Persian cats
the scam was working well
the flames new preacher Cyndi Kat was on late night television
and the infomercials brought in large donations
from Istanbul on through the rest of the middle east
OPEC loved the fact that the fabrics used were oil-based
their officials maintained flats in Bloomsbury and the other squares
were envious as hell
a number of offspring and relations were boarding
at schools in GREAT Britain (recovering from Brexit)
it was ironic that we were able to stick it to these fat cats
since that’s what they’d been doing to the whole world since the Nixon Era
Using native cunning I convinced the board of directors of Flames LLC
to give up the shoddy practice of deceiving sheiks and imams
sultans panjandrums big shots executives and premiers
their families and followers and faithful retainers
by using fake labels such as Patagonica and Robbings
even though the profits were HUGE because of our use
of sweatshops in the US where the American public
desperate for work and undergoing a severe depression
toiled and sweated for daily bread
for the Trump Era had come and gone
leaving in its wake a shattered and broken economy
where taxes were out of sight
and virtually no one had any credit
but instead had HUGE debts
brought on by spending tin
that they didn’t already have, man
Instead, I pled, let’s utilize this new chemical DNA
developed in our labs in Labrador
that duplicated real animals
They had designed what we now call Fauxler Bear Fur
and Skunk Weed Hemp and I saw millions of dollar signs
flowing into our coffers in gushing torrents
for the ice age came along with the snowflake generation
and man oh man it was cool outside
let me tellya
and the fabrics of our lives changed from cotton
to weed and that was fun because you could smoke your vest
or your blouse if you wanted some fun
but there were no really cheap furs
because there were no cheap petrochemicals
from which to make fake fur
but fake DNA made it relatively cheap to do so
and I had made sure to collect the patents in my name
using the money I had scammed from all the fat cats
And that’s the way it stands today
here in the United Kingdom of GREAT Britain
where we are subject to no one but King Harry
--not Russia not United Korea
not New China nor the Vatican.
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Dec 10, 2017 - 08:18pm PT
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The Unanswered Call
For this republic the penultimate irony would be that like so many who have sacrificed themselves in the past to the valorous cause of freedom, the brave fighting men and women of our military are now required to protect the security of, and the inglorious cause of, a petty and insecure man who would desecrate all honor, cheapening by degrees the works and legacies of great men and the people for whom they’ve strived.
This desecration, which has been perpetrated in kind against those who have fought to build upon the tenets of democracy and our constitution amidst attrition and the perpetual horrors of war, has also been deeply racially dismissive of those who have endured generations of injustice, and shall not go unanswered.
-concerned citizen
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2017 - 10:48pm PT
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Miss U
Like a warm blanket
on a cold night
Or like Sun comin’ up
at dawn’s first light
They all called her Liz
which ends in a z
And she was my luz
and always will be
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2017 - 01:39am PT
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upon a midnight clear
brutal awakening
middle of the night
legs warm at last
room frigid
winter wonderland out there in the dark
the heater cranks up
old faithful friend
sends the electricity meter
spinning wildly
a ruinous expense
it might be a few hours
sheep won’t be here any time soon
on with the vest-slippers-ski cap
better now and bladder emptied
kettle trying its best to cheer
take in some steam
clearing the mysterious sinuses
coughing out the crud in my chest
breathing more normal aaah...
that's good that's what helps
make it bearable to be here
still can’t quite get the lungs full
the geezer-wheezer-Ebeneezer
with a solitary bulb
and the legs not good now
swelling as I sit
dying slowly from the bottom up
purple hue gnarly hard flesh
time to call forth the muse
who is fast asleep herself
good for her
she works hard
she likes to do for others
just want to hear a live voice
to feel a soft caring touch
wouldn't be asking too much
pen a few riffs
what rhymes with climb
does that scan
or is it garble
but the legs are swelling
they are telling me
back under the covers
off with the heat
off with the duds
one with the night again
two, three, four, five
sheep a-grazing
in the fields of wonder
is this a dream
or just electrons
in a droid’s head
--philip
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2017 - 05:38am PT
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Some of my friends on Facebook might wonder why I don't bother to post more of my photos there.
It's simple...they take forever to upload. I've been trying to get two shots posted most of yesterday and tonight, several tries, waiting...waiting...waiting...with absolutely no results.
This is a first world problem of the first magniturd, obviously.
"Tough sh!t," as they say.
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tolerant
Trad climber
seige pitch 1
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Dec 11, 2017 - 05:44am PT
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just trying to enjoi a bit of harmless insanity o'er here.
thanks for the guided tour of my brain, mouse.
i lvoe you and my heart stirs to see you pitch a memorial
of your sweetie. she's pretty. oh what a light in her eyes.
i can muster only a modicum of hope, but i give it all to you, however slight:
"please, universe. receive mouse warmly today. like hug him. tightly.
through this hug, mamma cosmo, remind him that he's a special bolt, like maybe the king pin, in this great rattling machine-called-life."
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2017 - 06:06am PT
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Y TY, tolerant.
That was tolerable kind of you.
Have an excellent day yourself.
Pretty durn good song here.[Click to View YouTube Video]
And another from these greatly talented ladies and Townesy.
WILDFLOWER BLUES (Parton/Holland)
There ain’t nothin I wanna do
There ain’t nothin I want from you
Baby you go your way and I’ll go mine too
Well I know the truth about you but I’ll never tell
Yeah I know the truth about you but I’ll never tell
But you know what I mean when I wish you well
I’m a wildflower standing in the sun
I’m a wildflower standing in the sun
Well I bust thru the cracks when the springtime comes
Summer breeze a-blowin storm coming in
Summer breeze blowin storm coming in
Gonna stand on the mountain
Throw my petals to the wind
I’m a wildflower and I’m growing like a weed
I’m a wildflower growing like a weed
All the bees come down from heaven
Make honey outta me
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2017 - 07:01am PT
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A visit from Frost last night, Jack not Tom.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Dec 11, 2017 - 09:21am PT
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Be patient. Rome wasn't burned in a day, but this fire is reported to have grown 50,000 acres in one day and is reportedly 360 square miles.
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throwpie
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 11, 2017 - 09:27am PT
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I just realized AutoCorrect corrected me from bullfrog to bulldog. Oh the humanity!
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Dec 11, 2017 - 09:29am PT
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At least it didn't rap you on the knuckles with a ruler.
or ...
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2017 - 10:53am PT
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And waiting...and waiting...still waiting...OH, the Automatonity!!!
At least I'm not getting a virtual pie in the face.
VVV Hey, bailer! VVV
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Dec 11, 2017 - 11:10am PT
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this -amazyou- is expressed in verse by
tolerant
Trad climber
seige pitch 1
Dec 11, 2017 - 09:01am PT
my f*#king dog blew out her shoulder on
a deep and wild hike.
she was done for. she laid down
and clearly told me with eyes that
this was it.
so i did what any faithful god would
do and i laid down to die with her.
that little collie went on and on.
slight breath, a waning wag,
colder and colder breaths.
we laid there for about 3 days
and i got hella board. waiting for
hers and i's death.
you ever done that?
attempted to quickly traverse from one
soul domain to the other?
way frustrating.
so i bailed.
but i picked her up
and started humming my favorite songs:
pavane opus 50, jules massenet's Thais meditation, mirror in the mirror, dance of the blessed spirit, much ado about nothing, etc....
my legs were weak from 3 days without food or water,
and i had miles to hike, my little moutainette in my arms.
she died next to my heart.
i laid her to rest in some boulders by a lake
where she'd decomponse without remorse.
and i walked into my past, which somehow
in the weave of life got in front of my future.
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