I enjoy the occasional funky "chain" email like the one I just got, the meat of which is below. What I DON'T DIG is the little voodoo curse threats they put at the end of these things that say if you don't send this to everyone you know you will, A: die of aggravated ingrown toe nails and consequent gangrene, or B: your whole world will collapse and in your sodden sorrow you will feed yourself to a wood chipper (ala Steve Buscemi). And I absolutely refuse to forward these fuckers on both despite and because of their heinous Haitian hubris. So, while we're on H-words then, HERE is the funny little word game minus the onus of you needing to pass it on.
>Pick the month you were born
1 (Jan) - I ate 2 (Feb) - I needed 3 (Mar) - I ran naked with 4 (Apr) - I ran shirtless with 5 (May) - I jumped 6 (June)- I smoked with 7 (July) - I killed 8 (Aug) - I banged 9 (Sept) - I shot 10 (Oct) - I robbed 11 (Nov) - I stabbed 12 (Dec) - I cuddled with
Pick the day (number) you were born on
01 - the trojan man 02 - a homeless guy 03 -a mop** 04 - A homo 05 - a dog 06 - A toothbrush 07 - my boyfriend 08 - my lover 09 - a rock star 10 - Paris Hilton 11 - a glass of milk 12 - a teletubby 13 - the kool-aid man 14 - a drunk 15 - a whore 16 - a pot head 17 - a bum 18 - a crack head 19 - a condom 20 - a stripper 21 - a porn star 22 - Barney the dinosaur 23 - the cookie monster 24 - a easter egg 25 -a hottie 26 - jezzy the snowman 27 - a bag of weed 28 - a french fry 29 - your mom 30 - a bowl of cereal 31 - your grandma
Pick the color of shirt you are wearing
White - because that Bitch stole my taco Black - because I love marijuana Pink - because I'm good in bed Red - because I have AMAZING boobs Brown- because I had to Polka Dots - because I hate my life Purple - because I'm gay Grey - because I'm sexy like that Other - because I have double D's Green - because I love to snort cocaine. Orange - because I smoked crack Turquoise - because I have a noodle in my nose Blue - because im the sexiest beast alive Tye dye- because I didn't like the way they looked at me
Dear Friends, Last week my friend Marilyn Dreampeace died. She left our world a few decades shy of what is generally considered old age. Her family, and we in the Art Car Family, indeed the whole of the living world, we all lost a person who, when pressed for words to describe her, this writer could only come up with Lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove. I wrote a few more words than that in an attempted eulogy the day after she died, but not much before I gave up and buckled over my computer keyboard crying. Then a few days later, the most lovely words about Marilyn written by her granddaughter came my way via friends. I asked permission to post them here. Permission granted, I give you Chelsea's ode to Marilyn. (The "forward" is from Marilyn's husband, Shalom)
Marilyn (left) & her sister Sunshine
From: Compost@aol.com I got permission from Chelsea to pass on what she wrote in the minutes after she was told her Grandmother had died. No finer obituary has ever been written. (I put Marilyn's final completed needlepoint into the mail to our youngest great-nephew just 2 hours before Marilyn died.) -- Shalom
hello family tonight's date is november 25, 2007 at five thirty tonight we lost a loved one. marilyn nelson. (dreampeace, compost) she was my grandma and still is in heart, she loved anyone she met sure there were people she didn't necessarily agree with but she had a huge heart she taught me as well as others so much marilyn worked for the people and with the people in her off time she was attending peace rallies and tending to her family life i remember her smile and voice from last time i saw her two weeks ago i arrived in santa cruz to visit her in the hospital she was trying her best to remain calm and happy the whole family had their concerns and thoughts (i apologize right now for this email being so scrambled but as many of you know i write in order to release me feelings) some of us lost a sister, a wife, an aunt, a mother, a grandma, a co-worker, a cousin, an anything but we all lost a friend a kind young hearted friend she always put others before herself in acts of kindness her actions consisted of honest from the heart things such as letting me be the first to paint the "come play with me" beemer or supporting her three children with their life choices marilyn took me under her wing for years putting me through school and putting clothes on my back when my own mother wasn't able to be there for me, marilyn was when shalom had long stressful days at work she would be there to talk to and give great advice all these things from one woman she wasn't just my grandma but my best friend, and the family knot. every holiday we could count on going to marilyn's, everyone could no matter if you were related by blood or not she would welcome you with open arms it's as if our family and her life were one of her needle point projects every stitch so carefully thought out and every color selected for a reason but once she felt she had done her job well, the needle point stocking would rest safely not on a couch not in a chair not in the car but in someones caring hands to be forever treasured that's what she did she patched our family together and once she trusted we could takeover she left it in our hands to be caring and responsible so it is our job, as a family, to watch over this gift of love, to not let it tear away but to keep it and treasure it not to mourn over the stitcher's hands being let off but to have joy in what cradled us for so long.
My friend Beatgirl put me up to this. Uh, okay. I should say she put me "on" to this. I just couldn't resist. Gee! Since replacing my 6-month deceased laptop a few weeks ago, I'm finding soooo many neato ways to piss away my time online! I LOVE IT! Who cares if I never finish "Dead Men" the sequel?
Seriously though, thank you, T. And for the record, I think you're a fine writer (anyone who reads as much as you couldn't help but be) and very lucky to live amongst the coho, the eagles, the Cascades and the Klingons. Also thanks to you, since I'm having such a hard time separating my online time from work on my next book, I think from now on I'm gonna limit my blog subject matter to the reading and spinning off of other people's blogs. There are soooooo many!
Here then are MY CELEBRITY LOOKALIKES!
Harrison Ford!! Can you believe it? All these years I've been getting "Doc" from "Back to the Future," aka Christopher Lloyd. But now, thanks to MyHeritage.com, that curse is lifted. It's official! I am the secret love-child of Indiana Jones! (Probably from that one Nazi chick that both he and Sean Connery banged, remember?)
Can you believe Dad's putting out YET ANOTHER SEQUEL due out in late May 2008?
Out of desire to lighten things up a bit after my foray into dark conspiratorial thought yesterday, I give you this, a fun little short video probably already posted somewhere on my website, but EVEN I CAN'T find my way through the Jigglebox.com labyrinth. This is a moment of fun in Steamboat Springs, a short break from my Continental Divide "Suicide Awareness Hot Hike" to Hunter S. Thompson's funeral in 2005. Thompson's funeral was the "high water mark" that became the opening chapter of my book "Dead Men Hike No Trails," my tale of survival over some 2700 miles hiking in the last vestiges of America's once-great and wild forests. Enjoy the video clip and read on!
NO BRAKES!
Now if you thought that was fun, and you just happen to be one of them old fashioned type people who still read books in print, waste not a moment and get yourself a copy of "Dead Men Hike No Trails." Click to read all about it on Jigglebox.com, or go to Amazon.com if you prefer. Most of the same reviews are there.
"Dead Men" is about a hike, a really long hike inspired by suicidal behavior of another, less jovial kind than I demonstrated above with my no-brakes roar down the mountain. Does that scare you? Hmm. I have that effect on people sometimes on account of I don't b.s. around about subjects like depression and suicide, and I pretty much eviscerate myself with my harrowing confessional style of writing. And maybe you're not one of the 75 million Americans that suffer from one form of mental illness or another. Or maybe you are, and that's why the D-word and the S-word scare you. But don't be scared! With 75 million friends, you're in great company! And with all the crap being done to the forests of our country and of our minds, our natural and physical and social environments, our air, our water, our workplaces, our economy, no worries. You'll have a lot more friends over the coming years.
But hey! I promised to be light today. I don't mean to get heavy on you. I'm just having a deep, sardonic belly laugh at the state of the state of the State. Ha-HAAAAA! But seriously. It's a good book. Don't take my word for it. Read the reviews. Not ONE person has expressed anything but praise with the book after some 2000 copies sold. Check out this review I just got from a seasoned hiker in his late sixties or early seventies. I didn't think an old time hiker of the Appalachian Trail would dig my take on the trail and on life in America in general, but, well, here it is:
"Hey, GREAT book. I read it in one week, couldn't put it down. It's the BEST A.T. account of trail life I've ever read! Kudos to you! You really touched chords in me. I found I cried along with oyu at certain points; found I agreed with you with a RIGHT ON at other points; and I really dug the SURVIVE theme." - Red Wolf o' da Smokys
[Is their an Agent in the house? The author has collapsed onto the floor. Someone call an Agent! Quick! This man needs immediate medica.. er, representation!]
What to say? What to say? Another day Uneasy in the U.S.A. Queasy to the core The government That ten dollar whore Blowing us down some dark alley With all the world watching.
I'm ashamed of what's become of us! Of where we're headed And not just a little scared (I'm willing to admit Like John Lennon being tailed by the feds) Of some new terrorist threat, real or Fox-fed & spun
And three, two, one.. Welcome to Martial Law, my fellow Americans! We'll just nip that presidential election shit right in bud.
Because Mr. Bush doesn't NEED to give up the Presidency, no no!
Not when the nation's at threat And you can bet if there's another 911 a-brewing That old George W will turn the TV a blind eye And let the planes, missiles, bombs a-fly Until it's all over but the curfew Security lock down, nationwide Orange alert my ass-cid stomach upset I see red skies at morning.
Americans, take warning. The fuel is already aflame And I'm uneasy Queasy to the core Because all they gotta do Is pour on some more.
[Author's note: the preceding poem wasn't intended to be the song of doom that inevitably came out of me. I was actually just going to write some light little ditty to go with "Flameout," the very cool little movie shot and edited with style by my talented cousin Justin Alessandro. Created out of Justin's video capture of a little camp stove fuel accident on the Appalachian Trail in 2004, Flameout is fun & funny. I hope you'll take a minute now to click the link above and watch it for a little laugh and easing of the freakout vibe that strikes me whenever I ponder the eerie possibilities of our precarious position as a still-semi-free nation under God and GWB. Personally, I'm praying that God is our pilot, not, as the Christians are fond of saying, "my copilot."]
I flew to the east coast last month from San Francisco for the fourth time this year to promote "Dead Men Hike No Trails" my from-the-gut roots and rock encrusted memoir of my hike of the 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail. This time it was to Gettysburg for the annual gathering of ALDHA, the American Long Distance Hikers Association. And it was to be a tough gig.
I had quit taking anti-depressants for the first time in nearly a decade, and I wasn't feeling so hot. But I was hell bent on giving a presentation to this esteemed audience, a new spin on my usual rap about suicidal depression, the trigger reason behind my thruhike of the AT. Alas, I was also trying desperately not to drink, not even a little bit socially, as doing so grievously aggravates the unmedicated depressive mind. My mind, anyway. In my circles of friends, be it hikers or artists or whoever, saying NO to a drink is about as hard as, well, it's a bitch.
On the upside, I was in a generous mood thanks to dear friend and hiker Matthewski paying my airfare so I could afford to invest in a couple dozen copies of my book to sell. Matthewski has some kinda crazy faith in me, or the book, or both, that reminds me of my late friend James Hull's love of the book, or me, or both. Before his death in May of this year, James had likely read 100 per cent of the book several times, and hundreds of his favorite passages many, many more times, to the point of having them committed to memory.
So Matthewski's generosity freed me up to be generous with the books, which I was. I gave away free autographed copies to select seasoned hikers, people pointed out to me as having hiked 10, some of them 20 thousand miles of trail in the Americas and beyond.
To Pat & Vickey Kelly, owners of the hiker-beloved Doyle Hotel in Duncannon PA, I gave four copies for them to sell, about a $100 worth of retail. It was both a small token for a hotel so old and in need of repair and a pretty penny for me, money I should perhaps have earned selling and given Matthewski. But he never would have taken it. It felt good then, to help support what is every AT Thruhiker's favorite old hotel. Pat & Vickey thanked me as I went. Shouting over my shoulder as I walked out the door in haste for NYC, I said, "Thank Matthewski!"
Thanks mostly to my anti-depressant derailed brain, my lecture crashed and burned most miserably. For me, anyway. I had been working on it for days, had come up with so many cogent ideas and convincing points, but when the hour of my scheduled appearance arrived, I found myself woefully unable to organize my thoughts. It was a good thing the friendly faces of several friends dotted the audience, or I think I would have broke down in tears.
And then the weekend conference was over, and I was off to New York City. Longtime friend Mike Strickland had recently moved there to be with his beauty Cassie. I had a good tour guide and a cozy place to stay. And from all that came a poem.
If you read this poem, I highly suggest you go into it with the jazz beat cadence of poet Jack Kerouac ringing in your ears. Why? Because that's what I heard in my mind as I saw New York City and thumbed out the words on my Blackberry, almost word for word as you see them here. [This was my first ever thumb-written poem, and I imagine my last.]
Click below to see and hear Jack Kerouac. Close your eyes and listen to the beat. Then open them, scroll down, and when you're ready, read my off-the-cuff take on New York City, a lyrical poem, a piece of pure gonzo prosidy.
Enjoy.
48 Hours In New York City With a Kerouac Jazz-riff Perspective by Rick McKinney
New York City, Zang! Wow! What! A! World! Unto itself, and I, come into it a-new One august-hot Monday afternoon in October Laugh, gazing over ice skaters at Rockefeller Square and roar Sarcasm unheard by most in din of city "YEAH! Melt polar ice caps, melt!"
Just an hour before, yellow-blazing in From Gettysburg where at the college I lectured and sold less books than ever Refusing to sit a table and sign and instead attending the lectures of others and learning Filling my brain and itchy dreamer’s feet with images and words of hikes the world over Not caring for book sales, giving a few away in fact to great old hikers Men and women with ten, 20 thousand miles under their backpack cinch straps
Now with hiker "EZ" at the wheel thru PA and Jersey into Sight of Lady Liberty and lord! what a rush of Emotions at first-ever sight of holy grail of America-she, Her newly refurbished gown and flame bright in tilt of rolling Earth away from Sun. Then, fwoop! A fast dive thru tollgate of Holland Tunnel and un-der-wa-ter to the island Bought for a string of beads. Manhattan! Manhattan! Pop!
And deftly dropped by Brookly-born & long & colorful New York life-lived "EZ" Curbside in Greenwich Village where waitress Jessica waited often on him to one day be gone and be-come Lange. Brief decent into sultry subway, then OUT! Into half-light of skyscraper canyon streets. It's Radio City Music Hall and old friend from high school Mike meets me, Stows my bag in office and direct to MOMA we go.
[momentary break in cadence]
In the museum I think it's funny, the scene around Starry Night All people crowding the space four or five feet back from the canvas Vincent touched, snapping photos they could get off the Internet instead of LOOKING at it and in-to it
At all the dense clumps of oil painted color, At the bare canvas behind. This latter I do. And this requires assuming an intimacy with the work, getting in close, close enough to make the guards nervous, but worse the people who, by dint of silly human nature, become embarrassed on your behalf, get nervous for you. Ha! Let them, I think, and so.. I drink the blue dew of Vincent's night Marvel at swirling strokes of brush & pallet knifed-paint, peek in windows brightly lit, My nose nearly to the museum glass, the latter Requisite I guess to protect this, The only Starry Night on Earth. All prints and photos of this painting cannot show I seek and see with naked eye and love it.
Now comes what I've waited for all my life, or so it feels. For though I have not daily thought of it, and never did it hold the greatness of dreams, A short and street-bound grounded tour of Manhattan three years ago left me wanting. So now, with pull and push of elevator cables & weights it's whooooosh! Up with the gods, we leave the Earth with eerie ease. Sixty-seven floors up in the Rockefeller Center the doors open and with them New York, Still thus far the center of the World, to us anyway. We here in America, where many think with good reason the dream is dead But where in truth it's right in front of you, always, Eternally burning in precise proportion to your own desire.
Anyway, the sun sets with requisite splendor and in the short time it takes for me to go from west to east side of building, to catch a glimpse of Uptown and Central Park Flash! Wow! Back around now staring west where someone has flipped a switch and all the lights of city grand are on and it’s a rainbow of towering industry and just across the way the flashes of tourist cameras pop and pop again from balcony of Empire State.
Down below and stomach growling Mike says pick something and here In New York City, it ain’t like you lack for choices So I pick Ukranian and Mike wavers, skeptical, but seems to grock that pizza won’t do So meat and potatoes it is and old world hospitality, Sweet waitress with thick Slavic accent.
Back at Mike’s we open all the windows But tonight the city’s an oven, all of it, unseasonably warm But somehow, for non-native New Yorker me, the heat thrills. Not normally one for TV, nor a follower of sports at all I luck into the Yankees fatal playoff blow & Dallas’ one-second comeback win, All in a matter of an hour before we retire for the night.
Next day we walk ‘cross the famed Brooklyn Bridge Staring through the wooden slats underfoot at the passage of cars, water, time. Meditative in the cool gray morning, yesterday’s heat a distant memory now with light drizzle coming and jackets donned I invent a slogan in my head: “The Brooklyn Bridge, as seen in (insert the name of any movie filmed in New York City here)”
Visiting Ground Zero I am lost for meaning. Try and try and all I see is a sad construction site Sad only because I know what was there, and what now isn’t Sad because of all the death perhaps but more sad that I cannot attach meaning to what I see, sad because the events of 9-11 don’t touch me here, don’t connect to this place. Sad as I suddenly realize I am standing beside the newly built Tower 7 rocketing skyward beside me when some guy with thick New York accent says, “One year. It took em one year to put that up. Can you believe that?” And six years later, shrouded in green and black wrapped chain-link fence as though in shame for slow progress, a crater. Nothing more.
Across the street at St. Paul's I get more of a feel for that grim day But it’s a warm feeling here in the chapel where the fireman slept in all their gear On pews left scuffed immemorial Every corner of the church that withstood the collapse across the street a reliquary Table, nooks, alcoves all full of pictures and letters, testaments to loss and love and life. Yes, here I am touched by Ground Zero but not to tears Tears fell then and often since, but not today. Today is my day to suck deep the marrow of this city, albeit fast, but to take it all in As a writer should, encapsulating, if possible the density of it all into a haiku if need be.
In Central Park I let my film-nut feathers show I want to see the rock, I say to a bewildered Mike What rock? He wants to know. You know the one, the one they’re always sitting on in movies Once in the park I realize how many piles of rocks there are and relent. We find a deli, order out and climb up one for lunch.
I have just one more wish One more thing I want to see, and it’s the Plaza For half my life I’ve known of the Plaza Hotel First told to me in gossamer-wrapped memories By mentor Chris who first called me writer She who worked there long ago as Conrad Hilton’s personal assistant And saw it all. And it was much. Tales, some tall perhaps but all based in real life of movie stars and royalty, a dance with a prince that lasted to her death at 80. It was her moment, her time, holding the fort for Hilton during WWII. And if you believe in Heaven, as I do, she’s there still, dancing with the prince on feet that never tire.
But therein lies the rub for me, the melancholy end of things. That Chris died years before my long-envisioned wish to take her there Take her back to her beloved Plaza on royalties, all expenses paid by me from the sale of the best-selling novel that never was. The corrupt publisher bankrupt and imprisoned, Chris ten years dead, and now the dream a seeming impossibility forever more as I stand outside this castle now caged in scaffold, unable even to enter the lobby and feel the presence there, her spirit. CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS, the signs say. And the word on the street says she is no more and tomorrow will be condos.
I turn away from her then and stare at Central Park, dumb at last. And Mike, in his haste and well-earned stress of all his generous tour-guiding Tacks off numbers, counts down from five when I do not answer his query: what next? What next, indeed. I don’t know. I hear his haste, read frustration in his face. Too bad, I think. Too bad. For all I wanna do is sit on marbled steps of castle, of Plaza-no-more, and grieve a moment, for Chris, for characters I’ve written into life then left alone in purgatory of prose unpublished/unread, for this, for this, for this. I think of Chris.
That night it’s dinner uptown Some Italian restaurant, fancy With Cassie, a beauty Mike met scuba diving in a New Jersey quarry Who now holds his hand over railing of descending stairs, down into the underground And twirls in fingers long and lovely the pull string of his sweater hood Little things that bespeak love, the kind of love I have lucky had Now want to have again, all the more as I watch them together And hope they stay – that - way.
Next morning and final hours in Manhattan I spend my time in MOMA, a twenty dollar entry fee Now twice free by dint of Mike’s corporate pass from AOL And walking through lobby of another Rockefeller Tower, The one that Mike works in, I catch a familiar face out the corner of my eye “Larry?” I ask, but the face is unforgettable It’s the face of early 21st century abandonment art, of participatory art Larry and his signature hat. And so it is. In a city of 12 million I bump by happenstance into Larry Harvey.
Larry and Marian and Harley, the triad top of the Burning Man power pyramid. (Or some such corporate nomenclature that does not now nor ever has held my interest.) We chat briefly, me knowing them full well from 12 years attendance, their recognition of me hazy at best. Such is glamor and fame, I guess. No matter. Serendipity has a glow of its own. And so I walk off glowing, knowing full well who I am. Full of all the magic that is this mad city Known once to me only in movies Now known for sounds like a subway train’s grinding screech And smells of fresh-cooked everything and perfume of passersby Of touch of stone and glass rising skyward to forever and ever
[same cadence, slowed waaaay down..]
Yet mostly, mostly, to me New - York - City will next time likely once more be A movie come – to – life – a - gain.
Happy Birthday to Me. Yeah, that's right. I turn five today. Or turned. As of 2:10 a.m. EST, I was born in Salem Massachusetts long, long ago. Forty one years ago. And as I was recently taught by friends to reckon it: 4 + 1 = 5. So I am five.
This is where Rick McKinney begins and Jigglebox ends. Or Gonzo ends and mayhem begins. Or, something like that.
Half of everyone I have ever met has aspired to my occupation. I remember the day when I used to boldly claim "I AM WRITER!" just to hear myself say it and hope it be true. Well, now I really am a writer, a paid professional all that. However, I'm now ever more the mental case for having "made it" yet not made it because I find myself buried beneath a slush pile now exponentially increased in size, an avalanche of "authorism" disheartening to behold. Now, ever since some cyberdingdong put together the words "web" and "log," the ENTIRE OTHER HALF of the world's population has jumped on the blogwagon.
Now, if the Internet is anything to believe..
EVERYONE IS A WRITER!
Well, congratulations to you all. I commend you and applaud you and invite you all to toss your dime store mortarboards in the air! Whoo-hooo!
Pay no attention to the man kicking you in the groin whilst your heads are tossed back in graduated glee. It's just me, getting my just desserts. It's only fair. After all, you've all put me out of business, haven't you? If EVERYONE IS A WRITER now, ipso facto ergo blah blah, I AM OUT OF A JOB!
Thank you very little, world. If I had the time, I line you all up to kiss my ass and have my assistant pass out cookies. Oh, wait! I no longer have an assistant because I AM OUT OF A JOB!
Today is MY BIRTHDAY and this is MY PARTY and I'm pulling Jigglebox.com OFF THE AIR for the day to enunciate my sincere loathing for every Tom, Dick and CyberJane who think they can write BETTER than me or BE a writer INSTANTLY, JUST ADD BLOGGER! (Excepting of course ALL of MY friends and anyone blogging who can ACTUALLY write:-))
You suck.
So suck this and Jiggle me that. I'm off to the October 27th, 2007 "End The War Now!" rally in San Francisco today.
My good buddy Tom Kennedy and I will no doubt run into ole George W and Tiny Dick C, have a little tea with the boys, work things out, you know. And when we've solved the Pentagon's penchant for whaling on small nations full of darkies, I'm gonna see if I can't get my exec & chief and his homies to toss me a special 41th birthday present. Should be a cinch with all these new anti-terrorist laws in effect and such. I'm not gonna ask for much, just the illegalization of FREE SPEECH FOR IDIOTS from the OLE WWW! The World Wide Web, cleansed of idiot banter once and for all so that WE, THE ELITE AND WELL-HUNG, er, TRAINED WRITERS may again practice our craft without sharing headline space with trailer trash with double digit I.Q.s. Right.
This is Jigglebox.com. We rule and you know it. If you don't, again I say, it's my party and...
