MAY DAY! '08

There once was an old lady who swallowed a fly. She swallowed a spider to catch the fly. She swallowed a bird to catch the spider that wriggled and jiggled inside her. Yes. That old song from younger days took on new meaning for me this year. I awoke New Year's Day with the realization that the fly that I taken-to years ago to eradicate from my body the shit of depression, had multiplied. And that's not all. Somewhere along the road from my troubled Saturn Return (if only I could destroy planets with my mind, I'd blow that fucker right outa the sky!), the flies had become those nasty horseflies and their sting required treatment. Some doctor prescribed spiders to eat the flies. I dutifully swallowed spider after Klonipin-spider. When the spiders began to bite, well, the good doctors had something for that, too. Birds. If you're following this progression, you'll have guessed that our birds became, in time, a veritable flock of seagulls.

Now, I'd been drinking socially since age 16, sometimes to excess. We'll call booze the cat. Unlike all the other creatures, the "cat count" in my blood remained, interestingly enough, static and even decreased at times. But to untrained observers versed in the symptoms of only most obvious social drug, the cat took all the blame. Bad kitty! In my growing remorse for all my pets, I hiked my ankles into oblivion on a few thousand miles of American soil, rowed the Mississippi River until I shredded my untrained shoulder muscles, and sailed the San Francisco Bay so hungry for the life that had long ago been denied me by chronic depression that, in my desperation, I hurled myself from the deck of my sailboat four feet down to the cabin companionway T-boning my lower back so bad that I've spent the entire winter as a hunchback. Woo-hoo, as my friend Frank would say. Woo-fuckin-hoo!

So, on the first day of this glorious upchuck-colored year of our Lord, 2008, I quit everything. I mean EVERYTHING! Booze, Prozac, Valium, Codeine, and just to rub salt in the wound, coffee, too. And by shear force of will, I succeeded. Don't tell my mother, but my vigilance nearly cost me my life a few times. NEVER cold turkey Klonipin! It is death in a bottle. Were I of a litigious mind, I would launch a lawsuit so noxious it would poison the very fabric of our pharmacopious society. But I'm not. So I won't.  Anyway, I quit. And four months later, to the day (that's TODAY), I popped out of a nightmare I have been walking around in for dark endless weeks and poof! I realized that if I didn't go back on meds, I was going to die. It was that simple. And that clear.

Friends can attest to my out-of-character teetotaler abstinence from alcohol (not a drop for four months). I exercised regularly, put myself out there to be with friends and be social. I went without all the pharmaceuticals, without beer, without caffeine of any kind for FOUR MONTHS. Oh, clarity was grand, let me tell you! I was the most uptight insane nefarious creepy unstable bug-eyed childish scared and stupid human being you'd ever not wanna know for the duration. Especially in recent weeks. Then today, utterly at wits end after countless bad-sleep nights and morning terrors and queasy uneasy daydream days, I packed a day bag, let a close friend know where I was headed, and set out on foot for the local ER, where I knew I would then be transported to the county psych ward and who-knows-where from there. I was gonzo in the worst definition of the word. Worse, I had that eerie instinctual sense that if I didn't surrender to the medicos I would soon be dead. I walked a couple of miles to the hospital, paced outside the ER, and, being a smart cookie, fast-forwarded in my mind through the whole awful demeaning 5150 process I would be put through, the whole mental instability meat grinder. When I popped out the other side and returned to the present, I turned on my heel and walked away. I couldn't do it. I can't do it. If I lose it, they're gonna have to talk me off the railing of the Golden Gate or peel me off the front of an Amtrak train, because I just can't self-admit any more. I returned home to my sailboat and knew what I must do. I took my medicine. And though one med takes two weeks to kick in, the other is practically instantaneous. I felt better in a matter of minutes. And for the first time in four months, I sat down at my computer NOT to fumble incoherently with email and infinitely confounding web, but TO WRITE! And to post to my website for the first time in who knows how long.

Now I know it wasn't the booze or the drugs, though certainly a return to careful moderation is in order. It was me. It was my body chemistry, my lifestyle perhaps, my DNA. It was me. And it was how my fragile eggshell mind interacts with the reality of our bomb-crazy, human-torturing, war-money-loving, daughter in the basement raping and imprisoning, pregnant marine killing and body-burning, multi-trillion dollar debt crashing country and world and human race. And there's no judgment left in me for me. I just am. And in the meds or death ultimatum, I'll take meds and life. And that's ranting for you. - RSM

Dig the Vacuum

I'm right there with you, girl.

Feelin' it!

- RSM

Davey Jones Come Unlocked Last Night

Had a bit of a blow here in the San Francisco Bay Area last night. Here's a peak at my writings from today which, naturally, veered into the telling of the tale of my night in the storm. (This is just a snippet. Included are two shots taken out my forward hatch, one off the bow, the other to port and doctored a bit to capture the mood. Click images to see them full size.)

As the storm gained power through the night, my finely tuned rocking chair morphed into a theme park bumper car ride with no one at the wheel. I was jolted awake at some bewitched hour by Jeliza thrashing about in her slack tethers. With a "Snap!" the ship would reach the end of her aft lines. Then, usually after a good 30-second pause, "Thwack!" she would come full forward in the slip.

To add the excitement and punctuate the aforementioned jolts, a wave would slap against the port hull once every few minutes. How could this be? I wondered. I'm protected on two sides by docks. As my mind cleared a bit, I realized what must be happening. Could the wake in the estuary be so great as to be hurling waves over the end dock and into the side of my boat? It was the only explanation.


(Note swell nearly cresting the dock well after storm's peak)

I leaped up in the dark and grabbed my VHF radio. Immediately, I heard the obvious reported back to me in the robotic tones of the national weather service's tireless voice simulated reporter (now male, now female, just to break the monotony). But there was scarcely anything monotonous about tonight's reports. Swell in the bay's deep channel reaching upward of 12 feet. Winds a constant 25-30 knots with gusts upward of 60. One storm front overlapping another in tumultuous succession. Possibility of hurricane force gusts of over 100 mph on land in areas over 1000 feet in elevation.

Jesus, I thought. If it's this bad in the Oakland estuary, the storm must be trashing all to Hell the more exposed ports like Berkeley and Pier 39. Having no desire to go out in the storm and sensing my lines would hold despite the no-longer enjoyable rocking and jolts, I turned off the radio and drifted, over time, back into a wary half-sleep.

For the better part of the pre-dawn hours, I slept at an angle as the powerful offshore wind tipped my boat and held it there, a giant fist holding the mast at an almost constant 20 degree heel to starboard. I awoke again at first light with a headache from the slapping of sheets (ropes) against the hollow mast, donned full rain gear and clambered out into the wind to quell the cacophony and stave off what I could of the storm's relentless assault.

And I hear it ain't over yet.
(Satellite image provided by the Natl. Hurricane Center)



Looks like we're in for another wild night.

-RSM

007 is Dead!

And there was much rejoicing.


Dazzling fireworks over London reminiscent of V for Vendetta!

I myself entered the new year rather subdued by a head cold. I didn't go anywhere grand nor see anything fantasmagorical. I had no New Year's kiss. No fireworks. No romance. Oh, dear. Pity me.

I don't care. I'm a cool cat, a suave ship's captain, a self-actualized writer who dreamed a dream and when it failed to come true of its own accord, beat it into submission I did. And if it wasn't self-published and utterly lacking in publicity, it would be a best-seller. No question in my mind. Who out there among you knows the agent or publicist or publisher to carry this book that is sooooo beloved to those who've read it, who among you can help get it out there to the masses? Anyone?

This year you'll see the rebirth of this author. Getting off all the drugs, God willing. And I ain't talking street drugs. I'm talking all the pharma-crapical shit I've been scripted for and been leaning on for years. Gonna get clean, we are. If it kills us. Had enough of their drugs.

What will take the place of all those groovy little pills that have constituted my life support system of an entire decade? Dunno yet. Working on that one.

If I'm absolutely going bonkers in another month or so (I've been off the anti-deps for over 100 days now), I've promised myself to follow my own advice as writ in "Dead Men Hike No Trails" and drag my blues-broken bones out to Georgia and that's right - hike the damn AT again if I have to. If I can hold out til mid-April, maybe I'll be hiking the PCT.

I wish you all health and happiness in the new year, and good fortune. We're gonna need the latter. I prescribe plenty of humor to get us through what - to this writer, appear to be the darkest times of my adult life. But then my vision is a little skewed.

Will Ferrell. He's a funny man. Keep your eyes on Will Ferrell, and my apologies for the lack of substance in this blog these days. I'm saving myself, as it were, for the next book.

Semper fi,
RSM

Die 2007! Die!

"I think watching 2007 go out is gonna be like watching a burning ship squeal and writhe as it sinks into the ocean and dies." - Mike Marcyes

Well Happy Freakin Nude Year!
I tell you what, 2007 sure as shit sucked ass.
So BRING IT ON!
Come on, 2008! Pay up!
You owe me some back rent!
I hold you personally responsible for all damages and debts wailed on me by 2007.
So kick down! I gotta get my drink on! Yeah.
Right. Okay. That's right. Whatever.
Just watch this video.
VIDEO HAHA!
I dunno, but somehow as I sit here 90 minutes from the click of the Crazy Clock on over into some new and promising reality, all I can think of to write is.. well, NUTHIN!
Thank God then for little drunk people and subtitles.
This video that I stumbled onto and pilfered off of YouTube today says everything I wanna say about last year AND THE NEXT! Enjoy.
I'm gonna go get in a morphine coma and have kudzu vines tattooed all over my face.
See you next..
Whatever.
Ugh.

A Very Merry from me and the new wife

A Very Joyous Junkie Christmas To All, & To All A Good High!
No, seriously folks.
Happy Holidaze from your favorite miscreant poet and scribbler,
Dr. Oznog Jigglethwarp Hayduke, the One & Only.

And special thanks to and prayers for my friend Bianca
(the model for this MOST SCANDALOUS shot!), to Bianca
and to her sister Angelina fighting this holiday season with
something to humble us all in our holiday battles:
cervical cancer.

Our prayers are with you, Angelina.

Love,
RSM

Review my book! Pretty please?

Today's Photo is of my friend Diane Bombshelter's bookshelf. The baby head was a gift to her from Lord Duke the art car. I have another picture of Diane, a big gonzo fan, standing outside the Woody Creek Tavern in full gonzo attire. Alas, I want to use it somewhere where it won't be rapidly buried by tomorrow's and tomorrow's and the following tomorrow's postings. So, stay tuned on that one.

First off, in the news: (not one to point fingers, for indeed I have was silent as the grave here in Jiggle Blog Flog da Paris Box-ville for half a frikken year) but my cousin Justino has FINALLY blogged again. Yes, I'm Sirius. Check it out. It's a good little story complete with forgotten native Americans, total loss of motor control on black ice & other snow storm hell, road rage, AM radio fuzz, and good Italian that he is he even got his mother in there, too. Click The Burning Mind to crawl inside my cousin's mind.

Secondly, whoever sent me the package to POB 32352, Oakland 94604, that's my address. I'm totally sorry they returned it to you. Postal swine. Seems they have this policy about not holding packages for more than ten daze. Something about lack of space. I remember tiny little post offices along the Appalachians that were stuffed to the ceiling with hiker packages that the local postmasters would dutifully hold onto for months and months w/o complaint. My post office in downtown Oakland is so mammoth it could house an indoor Nascar track. Ridiculous. Well, I bike everywhere these days (no car). Between that and the fact that I exercise my right as a bat-crazy writer to stay up all night writing (and doing my best to promote Dead Men in anyway I can online, as you'll see below), well, I don't get to the box very often. So I missed a package. It arrived around my birthday. I can only imagine it was something very nice, a heartfelt gift. Forgive me kind sender, whoever you are.

So, finally, the promotional crap. Amazon.com has this thing where you can enter in keywords to go with your book. Then they take it a step further and invite you to express in a short paragraph WHY the keyword (or author or book) you've tagged to relates to your book. So I pissed away a few hours tonight plugging my own damn book. I gotta tell you, there's nothing worse than tooting your own horn. I HATE it when people do it to me, and I have never expected any agent or publisher or ANYONE to listen to my own promotion of my work. To my mind, the best recommendations are those that come from other people, two or three steps removed from the source.

Having said that, can I throw a little Christmas request out there into the Universe? I don't want presents. I don't need anything tangible. But for all of you who read Dead Men but never went online to review it on Amazon, how about it, eh? Even if you hated the dang book, write that! Write anything. Just review it. And don't read the other reviews first. You'll taint your own view. Write how it made you feel, what it did for you, where it took you, etc. I know it's sold some 2000 copies, so it totally mystifies me as to why there are only 17 reviews on Amazon. Hell, as you'll see below, I just wrote four "reviews" myself.

Be my good little elves. Be my Santa Clauses and Rudolphs! Click this paragraph to be taken straight there and just write something. Your opinion matters! Thank you.

Amazon.com tag words for Dead Men Hike No Trails:

Appalachian Trail Thruhike:
Several readers of this book have found it inspiring enough to launch thruhikes of their own. I speak based on fact, not ego, when I say EVERY reader of this book has expressed only praise. If the author didn't continue to battle chemical depression, he'd have an agent, a publicist and a bestseller.

Bill Bryson:
When told I thruhiked the AT, people say: Bill Bryson. If you loved A Walk In The Woods for its humor, as I did, but are one who desires a more intimate relationship with your author, read my reviews. They say it all. I take you on an unforgettable journey in a book you'll never want to part with.

Into the Wild:
This is required reading for anyone who felt a personal connection to the whole McCandless epic freedom journey. Why? Because it ends not in death but in LIFE! Thousands head into the forests of the U.S. every year for the same reasons as Chris, and months later they come home alive. Buy this book.