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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Jun 29, 2016 - 05:56am PT
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The Flamenvix
(Hunger Flames)
part VI
There is the darker part of darkness that pools deep beneath our pain
Where the worst of all our demons lurk to resurface again
But we balance it with compassion lest we all should go insane
It's the the evil that's inherent in the heart of every man
Up to now the heartless alien had toyed with me and learned
What it's spawn would need to know to insure we'd all be burned
This birdlike moth she-being had both seduced me and had spurned
With her soulless dead black eyes and such cruelty be warned
So I shuffled off in the darkness and found refuge in a niche
As hate blossomed in my heart to parry the loathsome witch
This angry heart was now a weapon as a plan began to stitch
As seductive as she'd become I knew I had to kill that bitch
As the plot to slay my adversary formed inside my head
It was as brutal an idea as any thought I'd ever had
Requiring dumb luck and deception with my vitriol held in stead
It being clear to me in that moment was that my friends were likely dead
(To be continued)
-bushman
06/29/2016
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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 - Jun 29, 2016 - 07:11am PT
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"OMG! What next?!?!"--Edgeofmyseatandscarredforlife!
Great epic, sheepdogger.
A thriller, though maybe not from Manila.k-pow! k-pax! k-ching!
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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 - Jun 29, 2016 - 07:19am PT
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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 - Jun 29, 2016 - 07:58am PT
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The marine images are screen shots from Wild Pacific, a BBC presentation directed by R. Brownlow.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jun 29, 2016 - 08:14am PT
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Tree_wise in CA. as reported, since 2010, more than 66 million trees have died -- about 1.6 per cent of the state's nearly 4 billion trees.
...
More than three quarters of the devastation has come in roughly the last 18 months.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jun 29, 2016 - 05:31pm PT
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This should be seen in gilded velvet-Elvis in his cape, style
This is a BASE jumping thing that delves a bit into the draw of the activity
The lure to re-create the 1st time thrill is not addressed, that need is often the fatal
Focus that leads otherwise stern strong young
& seemingly life loving individuals to fling themselves into the void
Repeatedly till death is enjoyed?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhmzmOwkRuM
Lurkers': as I address y'all, imagining the haters,
I dreamed of combining BASE, well, the, E part, anyway;
jumping back down after climbing up, from a very young age.in the '60s.
Starting when we all met, in 1977? & then thru the early 1980s,
Andy Tibbits, Brother Alex Golden Hair, a real pisser, . & I were
the guinie pigs, for John Buchards early kites. In New Hampshire.
So Hiesenberg, you do not have any right to say who has or has not experienced flight.
. I really like the way somethings offset each other, the curve V's. The straight , oh, these two bottles next to each other, a nod to the delegation of the damnd. .`is it? It is!
If it hurts. One suffers, the path is full of obsticals, hurdles trumped, to atain enlightenment
. It is ART
Thnxz for viewing, go wipe your eyes, No surprise this is the End page from issue 7,
Of DONGs & BONGs published more than quarterly , delivered wrapped,
having undergone a change, a restructuring if you will,
Different from the 1st offing of BONGs & DONGs
A restructuring, from its inception; 'Sparks to Flames!'
the the previously archived New Vulgarians Digest
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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 - Jun 29, 2016 - 07:41pm PT
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The Moss on the Falls
or The No-Fall Zone
a first installment of a short story based on a work by Isaac Bashie Slinger
Moss worked in the deli as the clean-up guy. He smelled a lot like a stale french fry.
But that was his lot. He wanted nothing more than to have a quiet job, with little interaction with others, but these were mostly tourists who wanted to know when the bathroom would be back in service. He was good with that. He didn't need to say much to anyone because he had nothing much to say. Ever.
He was left alone by the rest of the crew and his boss trusted him to do his job first and chit-chat later, but Moss never started a conversation.
He had a reputation as a dim bulb, but his library at the dorm was crowded with climbing mags and books by RR and Roper and Bullwinkle and Largo and Fitschen and Werner and Chongo, all the greats from the recent past.
Whenever he saw any of the current crop he STFU and walked the other way.
He loved to go out and scale Sunnyside Bench each evening, timing his arrival at the top of Lower Yo Fall to coincide with the lengthening shadow of the Camp 4 Terror as it crossed Ahwahnee meadow.
He took a picture of that view--which included Glacier Point, Half Dome, and the Arches and the Column and Cloud's Rest, never varying the frame, always perfectly level--almost every time he went up there, which was most evenings. There was nothing on TV at that time, so what else besides reading about climbing was there to do.
He was simply happy to go climbing every day.
Moss grew very strong, over time. He found that he could do two laps in the summer, even if the air temp was soaring. He always tagged the pool at the top of the falls, completing each ascent, and he took water copiously from Yosemite Creek, because it was cold and it tasted like nectar to him.
He never went to the pool, though, if another person or group was there enjoying the unique spot. Not HIS spot, he understood, but he was inordinately shy and had not much to say, and folks thought he was the Village Idiot, but he cared not and went about his business, did his job, and became hardly visible to most folks. Just a guy in a jumpsuit and ball cap with a cleaning cart who smelled like fries.
Moss never was in a hurry, never wanted to go faster than a better-than-casual pace, realizing that to ignore his pace would mess with his inner peace. He went placidly, climbing the Bench--his own private piece of California when he was the only one on the route, which was usually void that late in the day of any other parties exceopt folks tarrying at the pool. He relished the coolness of the shade in the late day, always stopping to look at the view from the first ledge and then taking a photograph. It was practically the only use he had for his cell phone, actually. Otherwise he would not even bother to carry one. Nobody called him and he only called Mom in Amarillo on holidays because he had to. She was really his aunt, anyway, but he was raised by her and she insisted on the name, so...
(His aunt on his father's side--her real name was Lil but she preferred Jill--was married to a trucker and country bass player named Rock E. Mom/Lil/Jll and Rock E were most of the reason Moss gathered no friends. That is another story, kinky and dark and deeply deep. We won't bother to go there. Just thought Moss' character needed a little fleshing out.)
Moss had been living in the Park since he arrived in California after he decided to split Amarillo and the messed-up situation in the Panhandle. He had longed to visit Yosemite and when he got off the Greyhound in SF he hopped the bus to Merced and then the bus to the Lodge.
He spent one night bandit camping in the woods with Chongo. It settled his course.
Next day he presented himself to the Personnel Office, gave them a nice resume listing his HS diploma and three years as the janitor's assistant at a Walmart. He was hired and assigned to a dorm. His room was the last one in the hall and he had a window which only let him see trees and boulders but it was secure and he turned in that first night and rested like he never had before.
Well, his days off were spent walking around the Valley, sitting in Camp 4 at a remove from the bouldering boys and the rescue site in happy solitude. He kept running into Chongo Chuck from time to time, but they only ever exchanged a brief nod and a wry grin. They were only friends in passing and respected each other's privacy. Chuck kind of enjoyed being Chongo, he thought. He don't need me around and that's how it should be. I don't really need him, either. All I need is to climb every day...like Werner when he was a sprout.
He had no relationship with the doyen of YOSAR, but sort of wished he could ask him some questions. He seemed like he had sh#t to share that was profound. He knew he himself was not profound in his thinking, no matter what. It was a character flaw, he knew, but he refused deep thinking and meditation as practices. His mind was at its best, he thought, only when climbing.
His familiarity with the Bench route was such that at night he sometimes woke in his bed, thinking he was on the route, high up above the ground on the traverse or maybe down lower in the greasy gully at the base. He had the route wired and it never occurred to him to go see about other climbs.
The Bench met his needs like an old lady, he supposed. But he seldom had anything to do with young women. They usually shyed away due to his taciturnity, but that didn't bother him. He subscribed to a brown-paper-wrapped issue of Bongs and Dongs, an underground magazine published very privately and at great expense by an old Gunks climber calling himself Godd, which he had ordered and paid for in full for one year. Needs must be met. He had a routine, He stuck to it like Harvey Keitel in "Smoke," one of his favorite films.
He lived and climbed this way season after season, climbing in the snow only when it was sunny. It was Sunnyside Bench, after all. And no shadows come in the evening when there is a storm. So he stayed dry and happy and caused no worries for Werner. Once he reported that a party on the Bench had experienced heat prostration and the climber was in shock. They were two BC climbers, there for the Facelift, and they hadn't brought enough water, only a quart, and they moved slow because of the heat. Well, the poor fellow just collaped belaying his gal and she called to Moss as he was climbing up to please go find help.
"Too bad that they hadn't started a bit later and waited for the shade," Moss thought. The SAR team came and lowered him and they all rapped the route. Moss was standing below, off to the side of the knot of SAR folks gathered around the litter with the ailing climber. He was not wearing a helmet--he didn't own one.
A cry came from above suddenly. "ROCK!"
As Moss moved backwards toward the shelter of trees, the lights went out.
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Jun 30, 2016 - 03:17am PT
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Sorry for your Moss, Mouse.
Waffle.
Oh, the Need
The lawn was eating my rabbits
So I had to go the store
The rabbits weren't cheap
And I felt like a creep
Because Santa Claus wanted them more
Oh hickory wood
I knew that he would
Of all the times
My lawn needed me
The rabbits they came
For crumpets and tea
My fescue prayed
That it wasn't me
That I'd be the one
To underscore
Their need displayed
While in my sleep
I walked on the walls
And listened to calls
Life can be funny
And strange in it's way
-bushman
O6/30/16
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jun 30, 2016 - 05:38am PT
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Z so many of our musical shares now sport the dreaded three dots in ghosted frame,
Songs deleted! What a shame
A scham but all of it is YouTube, FREE
Kinda a scam (one that fickle junkie Prince abhorred)
A great version of Stir it Up, from '72? Went bye bye too
here's one that has not vanished, Hard to stop a 'Trane'
(Twas ALS, &heroin?that blocked the tracks?)
what a shame 42yrsold? I'll double check that. . .
~ Big Nick
http://youtu.be/5Q874h0HL9U
We had a rabbit one of two in the house was named Rosie,
He s supposed to be a she, also, but wasn't, so we let the
preggars, Balla, escape, or she escaped? I'm not sure which,
She joined in, outside, with Lucky & his cousins ~ Lucky buhnny
We call every bunny rabbit not in a cage LUCKY
Except for 'Roger' who was no dodger
The Chezc Shepards 1st kill .
Still that hopper made it to 2 when the mower reduced his sister to goo.
Oopsie, that's not why I don't run a mower, it's the killing of the dust I can't abide.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jun 30, 2016 - 08:26am PT
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I saw the light, did you?
Doctors issue warning about LED streetlights
There is almost never a completely satisfactory solution to a complex problem. We must have lighting at night, not only in our homes and businesses, but also outdoors on our streets. The need for energy efficiency is serious, but so too is minimizing human risk from bad lighting, both due to glare and to circadian disruption. LED technology can optimize both when properly designed.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/21/health/led-streetlights-ama/
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jun 30, 2016 - 08:40am PT
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A for all good entertainment the songs sung & riffs laid down hold up.
Can the same be said for B - Beyounce?
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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 - Jun 30, 2016 - 09:09am PT
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A Changed Moss
the second installment of Moss on the Falls
Cue the road music, [Click to View YouTube Video]
Disappointed, Moss opened his eyes. He was lying on the trail, looking up at the first ledge of the Bench.
"Is that all ya got?" Moss angrily shouted at the sky.
"Simmer down, man. You've been dinged real good. You need to calm the f*#k down, Moss." This was Werner, looking him in the face from a foot away, blocking out the blue and smelling of cigarette smoke, trying hard to look stern and serious.
Moss blinked his eyes and focused. "I gotta go up there. I gotta tell the dude it's okay, it happens. I'm feeling good. Lemme the f*#k up, ya stoopid ape!"
Well, Werner and his fescue crew all backed away as this gentle giant--Moss was all of six-two and built like Samson under his jumpsuit, BTW--got to his feet in a bound and grabbed his ball cap.
"Thanks. Is he gonna be alright?" He was watching the litter as it was being wheeled on one giant wheel down the Falls trail to the hospital, surrounded by a gang of Search and Fescue guys and girls. That one on the end sure had a nice butt, he thought. "Jaysus, I gotta find out her name."
Then he surprised everyone by turning around and bounding up the boulders to the base of the greasy gully. Less than a minute later he appeared to the amazed remainder of YOSARians below. They saw Moss exchange some words with the guy who had knocked the rock loose. They then slapped high fives and Moss was scampering up the slab above the ledge, then continued out of their sight, and then reappeared minutes later nearing the top of the Bench.
He was last seen atop the Lower Falls at the pool mooning the tourists on the bridge.
Two hours later he was spotted moving effortlessly on the Towers of Geek. He reached the "summit" as the shadows fell over the valley completely and it got dark.
This was reported to the Valley District Ranger and it caused the YOSARians some concern. They had left the area of the Bench after Moss had decamped, hoping for the best, none willing to try to go and look for him. The decision to leave had been Werner's, with the okay of the honchos. Now Werner and Dill were discussing the matter of how to write up the incidents of the afternoon. The news that Moss was seen on the Geek was startling, to say the very least.
"John, there is something going on here that we don't understand."
"Sounds like. All I understand is that I don't understand. Moss is not like that at all. He's not a rowdy and he doesn't use drugs or even drink. What is the deal, Camille?"
"I think he's gonna be okay. I don't feel like we should waste any more time lookin' or worryin'. We'll just bang our heads against the wall and get nowhere, man. Let's hang it up until mornin'."
"So, what do we tell the boss?"
"Tell it like it is. It's a mystery why he behaved like some reckless kid. You shoulda seen the leer on that guy's face when he noticed Libby on the litter crew. He was checkin' her OUT, man."
"That's the thing, Werner. He's not like that. He's a mouse. He never says squat. He's a loner like Robinson Crusoe."
"Yeah, he's a regular Prisoner of Chillin'. Or maybe he's channelin' Walter Mitty. WTF is up with that? I sure don't know and I'm not losin' any sleep on it. Can't do sh#t about sh#t. G'night."
So the night passed, the sun came up, and no one had seen Moss over at Degnan's. The french frier needed to have the oil strained and the bathrooms were not clean, in fact filthy. The talk began among the deli staff. The word got to the YOSAR early, too, that Moss HAD been seen having coffee (he always drank tea) with the climbing ranger in Camp 4, asking questions about different climbs. What's the best descent route from Absolutely Free? Things like that.
The staff at the Mountain Shop in Curry (it was still Curry Village back then) had sold him a pair of La Spotiva Pros (maybe they had 'em back then, I don't know or care, ya f*#kin' nazi) and a paisley chalk bag and a block of chalk and a water bottle and a small day pack. He paid in cash and then took off on the shuttle.
Well, short story's gettin' long. I'm sorry, the paint is drying. I need a beer.
He'd been seen repeating laps on Midnight Lightning.
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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 - Jun 30, 2016 - 09:59am PT
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I saw the light, did you?
Lighting's pretty poor here in Middle. At the computer table I have a stand-up lamp which I use (brilliantly) that I rescued from the lady who was moving and didn't want it. I'd like better but haven't the coin to look in the Mammacher-Exclaimer catalog for a super-duper multi-wavelength lamp with the capacity to range freely for itself for energy sources that it can tap into remotely while not adding to one's utility bill. That is my dream lamp. I know it's not in there, but anything is possible that can be dreamed up.
I do collect the catalogs, however. I can dream of better-lit nights with no flashbacks, at least.
Back in a flash.
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