From Buckminster Fuller...

• We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.
  • "The New York Magazine Environmental Teach-In" by Elizabeth Barlow in New York Magazine (30 March 1970), p. 30

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

Full Moon at Jemez Monument, New Mexico & The Tunnels

Upper Tunnel Entry/Exit

I've been researching traveling in Baja. I found Discover Baja Travel Club which offers a book list including hard-to-find maps. Vagabundos del Mar (another Club -- non-profit) offers discounts on insurance and has an online calendar to help facilitate the forming of caravans. It seems the traveler needs to get about 500 miles south of Tijuana before they can consider themselves "safe." And the best way (rumor has it) to run the gauntlet is as part of a caravan.

I've been wrangling getting treatment for the whiplash and have been "booted out" of the chiropractic office my Physicians Assistant (P.A.) referred me to. She had back problems which they were able to help, but they acknowledged I would benefit more from massage which they could not offer. So now we're going for the gold and I'll use it....whenever it comes, to pay for treatment. I'm not sure whether to be annoyed with the guy who hit me or myself for coming into town. In each case, I can see opportunity for spleen-venting that might be cathartic, but the ambivalence inhibits action. In the meantime, I sit and watch the clowns.

I went to Jemez State Monument last night for Pueblo songs and dances. There was one drummer-singer and two dancers. The place was lit up with luminarias and the full moon came up over the mountains. It was gorgeous!! As I was standing in the main hall of the church ruins, a woman began singing I Wonder As I Wander. It was just she and I and at first I couldn't tell where she was. I finally spotted her in the doorway. Later, she explained she's an agnostic Buddhist (sort of) who learned the song in childhood. She had a lovely low-register soprano that was dead-on each note. As a devout agnostic muhse'f, I liked the description (in the song) of folks as "orn'ry." I'm one too.


The last song the singer-drummer sang was for the warriors in the Mideast. He made a point of saying how WE (us Euro-Amirkanerz) started everything back in the olde days. I rejoined that we've ALL kept at it. When the song ended I asked if he'd heard of Anna Lee Walters' short story, The Warriors (included in the anthology: Earth Power Coming). He had. I related how the man in the story had never capitulated (surrendered) and when his grand-daughter asked him what he was still fighting for he replied, "Beauty." The drummer-singer allowed as how that may have been how it was in the olde days. As it happened, an impromptu choir had gotten going in the church and their voices were echoing from the roofless walls. I gestured toward the joyful noise and he acknowledged that that was why everyone had come there that evening...for the beauty.

Moonlight at The Tunnels

Afterward, I drove up to The Tunnels, the Gilman Tunnels, that is, and listened to the stream flow through the canyon. It's been warm and the snow melt was running strong. 

I'm caught up in helping Ms. Mary Francis DeHart get her sales proposal together for her Ranch in Slana, Alaska (www.hartd.com). She says this is the worst winter she's ever seen, and she's been there over forty years. I'm cogitating on heading up there around the end of February, after the Spring Bloom in Death Valley. I hate cold, but she really needs some help and it doesn't seem like there's anyone else.

In the meantime, I'm stuck in Albuquerque, mooning over the lost opportunity of spending the winter on the Sea of Cortez. Oh well, maybe next year.

As far as camping around Albuquerque in winter, I can't recommend it. Over the 30 years I've lived here I can recall two winters in which it never got below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. One was my first winter in '76. I thought I'd found heaven! The rest get cold sometime in January and vacillate around until March....or even May. It's unpredictable.

Last winter I went South into the Chiricahua Mountains SW of Rodeo (S of Animas). They, the mountains, straddle the NM/AZ border and are mostly in Arizona. The Turner's bought 'em in the 1990s and they're now jointly managed by The Animas Foundation and the Forest Service. There are a few "good" dirt roads into the area.

But the land is incredible! There is minimal grazing and the grass is waist high and so thick you can't see the ground. During the day temperatures reach the upper 50s - low 60s. At night it drops into the low 20s and sometimes into the teens. I recommend the area as it is very remote, inhabited by olde-world Americans, many of Hispanic-Spanish heritage with olde-world values......"Close the gates behind you, don't harass the cattle, and we'll leave you alone until you ask for help. And then we'll help." Last November and December I had it virtually to myself except for the Border Patrol, some good Samaritans helping folks lost in the desert, and a few hunters. Nobody else and no hassles.

No traffic, no planes overhead, just peace and quiet....except for the Border Patrol going by every half hour. But at least you know you're well-protected, right?

Home is wherever I am

Uber den Himmel Wolken ziehen,
Uber die Felder geht der Wind,
...Irgendwo uber den Bergen
Musse meine ferne Heimat sein.

Hermann Hesse, Poems (1902)

Across the sky the clouds move,
Across the fields, the wind,
...Across the mountain, far away,
My home must be.

Spring & Summer...reprised (The short version)

Our online chats led to lust. We agreed (in May) to meet halfway at Lake McConaughy, Nebraska (14.5 km N of Ogalla). The romance was wonderful for a few weeks. We wandered through central Colorado enjoying Spring. As she said before we met, she makes up in enthusiasm for what she lacks in duration. 

Well, Yesiree Ma’m & Boy Howdee!! Hit shore wuz good while hit lasted!! And since a gentleman never discusses his relationship(s), I’ll leave it at that.

In July my friend in Albuquerque who’d been undergoing chemo was back on her feet. I ‘queezed intuh muh flyin’ helmet, hollered, “Clear the prop!” and headed North (again) seeking cooler climes. Ten days later I found myself enjoying (superb!) coffee at The Lift (no longer extant) in Pagosa Springs, Colorado (346 km). I brag I averaged 34.6 km a day. Since then I’ve managed to cut that in half. I admit it, I enjoy chiding folks, generally males, on their paces. In those moments when I've had absolutely NOTHING to do (Let’s see....I vaguely recall one about ten years ago), I speculate on when the speed demons find time to tell someone they love them, let alone MAKE love. (It CAN be done while driving (as I'm sure you know), but Safety Clown frowns on that kind of behavior.)

After Pagosa I began a westward drift. Allow me to commend Mancos to you. A splendid town of about 1119 folks, Mancos sports three (count ‘em!) art galleries and the finest vanilla ice cream yet at Hamburger Haven! (since closed.

In Dolores to resupply, there's a magnificent library with excellent wi-fi and a pair of "magpies" in the meat department of the local grocery; one makes mewing sounds while the other cracks his gum. They reminded me of a high school I used for eighth and ninth grades (before dropping out) in the rurals of Tennessee. The only thing I could surmise is that they, like the poor kids in that high school, just didn’t get enough attention. I returned to the Forest, my socio-cultural needs sated. 

P.S. There's a great thrift store in the church at the West end of town. You'll know you're in the right place if the church is sitchiated in a triangle 'tween two roads.

The Taos Nuns

There were six nuns on their way to the Mission at Ranchos de Taos in their VW bus. (This happened in the ‘60s.) As they were going over the Taos Gorge (900+ feet above the Rio Grande) the one driving was enjoying the view so much she missed the turn. The three in the front had their seatbelts on and lived; the three in the back didn't....and died.

When they got up to heaven (a mythical place of unending orgasm) St. Peter met them at the gates. Apologizing, he said, “Unfortunately, you’ve come on a day when in order to get in you have to answer a question.”

The three nuns looked at each other, shrugged and the first one stepped up.

St. Peter had a stern look as he asked, “What was the name of the first woman God (capitalized as a concession to christians) created?” The nun smiled and replied, “Eve.” And as that was the correct answer, the gates swung open, heralds sounded their trumpets, rainbows filled the sky and with bluebirds twittering, the nun strode up the boulevard into never-never ending....heaven.

Now comes the second. St. Peter gives her the hairy eyeball and in a tone conveying the seriousness of the situation asks, “What was the name of the first man God created?” 

“Adam” she replies. And as with the previous, the gates swung majestically, everyone harked to the Harold's, and bluebirds tittered while confetti and ribbons added to the glory.....and she joined her sister.

So now it's the third one’s turn. St. Peter’s countenance is a bit more beneficent. He looks at the nun sympathetically and puts it to her: “What was the first thing Eve said to Adam?”

The nun is a bit taken aback. Sheepishly, she asks if she can have some time to think about it. He agrees to an hour.

She goes off and cogitates. Her hour up, she returns to where St. Peter is waiting.  Having had no success with her ruminations she is decidedly hangdog. Close to tears, as she approaches him she says, “Boy, that’s a hard one.” And the gates swung open, the heralds & bluebirds etc....

Don't forget the Alboline!

Albolene - It’s Spreadable!

ESO: How You and Your Lover Can Give Each Other Hours of Extended Sexual Orgasm by Alan P. Brauer and Donna J. Brauer describes Albolene Moisturizing Cleanser as the nearest thing to one’s own body’s lubricant. It is a bit thinner than crisco, but provides sustained lubrication without being absorbed into the skin. Although not water-soluble, it's easier to remove than other products.

It’s available from CVS Pharmacy and Walgreen's for around $9.00.

E.S.O. was first published in 1983. The products in this area have expanded tremendously since then, but as you've likely noticed, each has its own characteristics.

The book E.S.O was referenced in:  The Art of Sexual Ecstasy: The Path of Sacred Sexuality for Western Lovers by Margot Anand & M. E. Naslednikov, illustrated by Leandra Hussey.

Information about Ms. Anand can be found by googling Skydancing Tantra.

Many Happy!

Pig Envy.....Keeping the Global Economy Running (via drug sales)

Subtitle: Lothario’s Lament or The Pig Vindicated

Lothario, a character from days of yore, was known for his lamentation that regardless of how much cialis he couldn’t keep up with the pig. Research (citation needed) indicates that male pig orgasms last 30 minutes. In addition, rumor has it they're capable of up to 40 orgasms/session. (Most of the research is by men so the stats on female pigs are skimpy and questionable.)

Pigs, as you may have noticed, are not fat. In fact, they’re quite sleek and firm. Furthermore, their Mona Lisa-esque smiles hint at their true nature; a nature that is, if anecdotes be believed, both benign and solicitous. They’re easily house-trained and reputed to be smarter than dogs or horses.

Thus, we have to wonder at a culture that maligns such an intelligent and sexually staminatious animal. Is it yet MORE evidence of male envy? I mean, we all know the (stereo)typical male (why isn't it monauraltypical) response to anything that threatens their (alleged) supremacy: derogation or laying rubber. (I gotta lay SOMEthing, maaaaaaaaaan!!)

But about Lothario....Given that satiation in humans is an ephemeral experience, a common dilemma is, “What now?”

Ms. Peggy Lee’s answer is here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe9kKf7SHco
(umpteen plastic surgeries and STILL not satisfied)

Once, on a personals site, I glibly responded  to a query about where we'd be without our instincts with “Damfino,” the name of Buster Keaton's boat. I'd concur an instinct can be handy now and then, but being more a humanist than a Freudian, in general I prefer utilizing a bit of tho't. I mean, 99 out of 100 psychologists assert the biggest erogenous organ is the brain. But then, I wonder, did their studies include pigs?

Annnnnnd...I think the point of life is to have fun...

(SEE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIb6AZdTr-A )

It's true, I probably think less about consequences than most. So when the opportunity arises -- as when she crooks her finger and wiggles it in that way recognized 'round the world -- I’m the first to encourage each and all to shed the shroud of social conventions and DANCE. (In case you didn't get it before....here's a second chance.)

And for those of you who are jus' chillin', my wish is that you're someplace where yer dancin' can be uninhibited, yer orgasm-induced screams are like those forest trees that don't give a damn if they're unheard and the skies are not cloudy allll ddaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy.

Pig Envy!! Helping fuel our drug-based economy.