Here, try this:

[audio:John-John.mp3]

Well, that was a night, all right. That’s “John-John” by the original Zoo Pilots at our one and only paid gig — funded by a Kent County, MD Arts Council grant, if you can believe that — at Washington College in, uh… [ponder] 1984? ‘85?? It says right here at my audio page that this is from “the early Eighties,” but don’t take that for granted. It was two sets of originals by me. I even had a crazy lady recite her poetry in between! There were about a dozen of my friends in the audience and a few curious students. Not a big crowd, but we were in a big room in the basement with tables and a bar. At least I think it was a bar. Maybe it was a snack bar. But I had a good time, and I still have the recording.

Hang on.

As for John-John, he did it again on Sunday night, and I woke up at 4:00 a.m. this morning from a dream in which I beat him bloody. I mean that literally, and he deserved it. Then I had to get away so he and his hoodlum buddies wouldn’t kill us in revenge! Nightmare city, boys and girls, except this one is a gift, offering up about as clear a vision of the shadow as anyone is going to get. I’d been wearing him like a suit and couldn’t see, you see. That’s what dreams are for, especially when things are down to the bone when you drift off to sleep.

You may call this bi-polar. You can call me Ray. What blows my mind is that all those years ago, I instinctively pulled this out of my own psycho-drama and nailed it without having any inkling of what it meant. The song itself is a transmutation of something like a breakdown into a rock song, with just one verse and chorus, repeated over and over. I remember that the lyrics and the chords just fell out of my head, especially on the chorus. Over 20 years ago, and there it was, right in front of me. Who knew this stuff would take so goddamn long?

There’s something here I have to own up to. I even tried to, in the dream (as in the song). I went up to him while he still looked like hell, all sullen and battered, and said, “We gotta get straight with each other.” Trying to defuse the situation, you understand, effecting mutual acceptance and respect.

When I reluctantly got up at 4:00 a.m. to write down the dream while the pictures and emotions were still fresh — if I do this, I keep my eyes half-closed and don’t turn on anything bright — that’s when things got really weird. There was the light and the dark at the same time, and I was neither, nor anything else I’ve ever been. It didn’t feel exactly human, or maybe that’s the thing that needs expession in a whole new way. It also scared the shit out of me, but I think that’s all right. I mean, it just wasn’t anything familiar, and I felt a panic to return. Even feeling awful can be cozy.

(See, this is what I do instead of watching talking heads on Sunday morning or working in a hardware store.)

Tonight was different, though. I have no idea why, because all day long I was ready to snap. Instead, I washed the car before the sun set and stood outside swatting mosquitoes (which we don’t have here in New Mexico) in the dusk, admiring the gleam of clean white fenders. When I came in, I got out my instrument and played rockabilly bouzouki standing up beside the kiva fireplace to amplify the sound. And ohh, what a noise. Beats that mp3 up there all the hell, it does. Just you wait a little bit.

Tomorrow it’s off to Sandy Feet (Santa Fe) to take the stitches out of my gum. No, really. The dental implant thing. Have a greatl day, don’t worry about the election, and I’ll be right back.

I’m slowly catching up, still a day or two behind, but there are four more to see.

Meanwhile: here, for your viewing pleasure, is a baby horned toad. Yes, I finally “caught” one. This is a telephoto shot from about four feet away, cropped in Photoshop to bring it even closer. That’s one reason it’s a little blurry. The other reason is that I was in a hurry, obviously. And those are pine needles it’s clambering over, which should tell you something about the size (less than one inch long):

I’ve seen even smaller ones, too!

Things like this never happen when I have my camera with me.

Yesterday my wife and I took our exercise walk up the mesa. On the way back we saw two baby horned toads! These were two separate incidents, amazingly. And when I say “baby,” I mean tiny, about the size of my thumbnail. I took this relative abundance to be a good sign. After all, how many folks have ever seen a baby horned toad?

A couple of years ago I saw two babies riding on their mother’s back, one of the most astonishing things I’ve ever witnessed. She froze in the middle of the dusty trail, giving me a good long look as I stood right over them. This was extraordinary enough, to see the three of them, but then one of the little ones crawled off and walked a few inches away, onto a patch of sand that was much lighter in color than his (?) mother’s back. And then he changed color to match! I mean, in no more than a second or two. I didn’t even know they did that, but this one sure as hell did.

So today I walked up there by myself, and of course I took my camera. Hah. Nary a horned toad to be seen, naturally.

Run away, run away

But I did run across a piñacate beetle, otherwise known colloquially as a “stinkbug.” I’ve run into these before, and they deserve the nickname. It was the only animal I saw on this walk, but I had a good time anyway. I think I would rather just “be” out in the wilderness than do almost anything else in this world, even if all I see is a stinkbug. It has to do with the universal quality of consciousness arising from no thought.

I worry less and less these days. I know that’s odd, considering my history of apocalyptic rants. And by the way, did you know the Germans are preparing for a huge crowd in Berlin for Obama’s speech?

Okay, here you go, growing just outside the door, practically. I make a mean apricot pie, or better yet, turnovers. Apricots growing right out of the ground! Don’t say I never gave you nuthin.

No, these aren’t ripe yet, but we’re gonna have a ton of ‘em

No kidding, here it really is!

A small section of the Echus Chasma

Isn’t that a hoot? According to Reuters, where I snagged this, the European Space Agency’s “Mars Express” took this shot of a place called Echus Chasma. Here are the details:

A 4000-m-high cliff marks the edge of the source area of Kasei Valles in its western part. Gigantic water falls may have once plunged over these cliffs on to the valley floor. The original shoreline is still partially visible. The remarkably smooth valley floor was later flooded by basaltic lava.

The high-resolution photos (JPEGs and TIFFs) available for download at the ESA website should be great for desktop images, too. I’m grabbing a couple right now…

How did it get to be five days?? Anyway, FotoFeed is now current again. Today’s image is a cropped closeup from the shot below. It also shows up as the current header rollover on this page. (Mouse over my mug shot for a real thrill.) There’s even a hint of a rainbow:

Looking east toward El Salto and the village of Arroyo Seco

I took this on the way home from driving over Bobcat Pass (9,820 ft.) to look for elk. The beasts weren’t there today, but the scenery was stunning. The scene above is just north of Taos, by the way. Those are the Sangre de Cristos, of course, or at least a chunk of them.

It rained all Friday evening, which was novel.

I forget what happened the next morning, but we took off in the afternoon to drive down to a restaurant north of Santa Fe to meet my wife’s cousins. Very smart people. (One of them asks the most amazing questions.) On the way home we saw flooding in the arroyos, and later it rained all night again.

Today it didn’t rain, and we went to the Taos Pueblo powwow. There’s nothing like hearing the drumming and singing up close. For lunch I had a Navajo taco (the usual taco ingredients with beans & chile on fry bread). I had to have a Navajo taco because a), that stuff on fry bread is really, really good, and b) I’d just finished the last of Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides. The description of Kit Carson’s men driving the Navajos out of their mountain homeland and marching them off to exile at Bosque Redondo was fresh on my mind. The Army gave the refugees flour, but the wretched, hungry people had never seen wheat flour before and stuffed it in their mouths uncooked, making many of them sick. They must have learned to cook with it shortly, though the irony of the Navajos’ first learning to make fry bread at the Bosque is a powerful, fearsome thing — more than 3,000 of them died there from starvation and disease. The bread is mighty tasty, but you know there’s more than that at work, way down deep.

After we got home, I took a little nap and woke up crazy, like a panic attack, where all your options are bad. Suddenly, every endeavor was doomed. I was too old, too stupid, too fat, and too late. Where the hell had this come from? Trying to shake it off, I fired up the brushwhacker and cleared a path outside. Afterwards, my wife and I walked up the mesa and back, about a 2.3 mile roundtrip. I still wasn’t wholly reliable, though, not even after a double shot of tequila.

Then I had a brilliant insight: none of the things I’d woken up worrying about actually existed, or if they did, they hadn’t happened yet. (See, usually I miss that part, but this time I didn’t.) I tried this out on my wife, who mostly agreed, though I think she’d just as soon I take at least a few threats seriously, by way of motivation, so long as they don’t make me frown at dinner.

Sitting outside looking at the leaves shaking in the wind: suddenly, that was all that mattered.

Now this could be fun, especially if you have a family:

Your Heimatssicherheitsabteilung — sorry, DHS — is considering having airlines issue shock bracelets instead of boarding passes. You’d put these on, they’d have all your travel and personal info encoded into them, and if there was any trouble, they’d work like a taser: just push a button in the cockpit or in the flight marshal’s pocket and you’d be immobilized for several minutes, writhing like a slug in salt. Now then: this is not a joke. There are people in your government pulling down big salaries who think this might be a good idea. There’s even a manufacturer’s promotional video (see link).

Bush surrendered America to the terrorists years ago. He had help, of course, and most of them are still in Congress. I would have asked, “Why the hell are people willing to take their own lives to hurt us?” and gone from there. Notably, no one did, so here we are. If the country were applying for a job, any employer with half a brain would toss the resume in the garbage can.

I think a lot of people would wear these bracelets. Just look at what they already accept without protest! The reason I mention this is that this is where we are. I see and ask myself, where do I invest my physical and psychic energy? Looking deeper, mainly. Understanding myself. Absorbing the truth of Nature where there is no need for “answers.” Listening to my heart.

Hey! Wait a minute. Since I’d be doing all that anyway, it hardly matters what else happens, does it??

Well, sure it does, because I help create it, and that tells me things.

[BZZZT!]

Oh, what a grand few days…

We look at another place I know I won’t like — I’m one of those who know — and I’m not overwhelmed. Expecting the deal to crumble in the end regardless, I stay on my best behavior and pretty much keep silent. (Mistake!) But right away, in the absence of my all-knowing analysis, the landlord’s new refrigerator and a big sunroom have her heart racing. She doesn’t even mind that the wooded lot that starts 20 feet from the tall south-facing windows has just been sold — yet who buys a quarter-acre in town just to look at the bushes?

The house has forced-air heat with outlets way up near the high ceilings. The furnace uses propane. There isn’t a woodstove worth mentioning. I see money flying out the door and being cold to boot. “That little electric heater sure does a great job in here,” the owner says, pointing to a unit in the corner of the sunroom. She’s a very nice person, but I’m wondering why a sunroom needs a heater. At night, maybe, in the absence of insulating drapes, but still. All this I take in but keep to myself instead of sharing with my partner, who’s practically dancing a jig. Surely she’ll stop and see the bedrooms are too small, I think to myself.

Evening rain

In the end of course she’s flying high, so I have to come clean and do so about half a mile after leaving the place: basically, I hate it and we’d freeze to death. There’s a long ride home, if you know what I mean, on which I take silence for wanting to hear more. Yes, even after almost 30 years, I can still be that stupid. It isn’t hard at all. The biggest irony is that she’s fucking brilliant when cornered and almost always does the right thing: if I’d confided in her all along, she might have pulled the plug herself. We notice different things, though. On her own, she might have plunked her piano down in that sunroom, plugged electric heaters in all the rooms, and just kept on truckin’. Still, we just came through the longest, coldest winter of my life. I want a fire to get cozy with.

This morning I flip out and have to “do something,” so I drive into town to read bulletin boards for housing notices. Pretty lame, but it gets me off my butt. Trying to shake something loose, I take a short side trip on the way home to visit the Mabel Dodge Luhan House [historical site & conference center] like someone suggested. Just an intuitive thing. I walk inside, but there isn’t a bulletin board or anyone to talk to. The vibes are good back there in the compound, though, and I don’t mind.

The air outside is sharply cool and damp from last night’s rain. As I creep down the tight little alley in first gear on the way out, the sunlight is warm and welcome by way of contrast. Halfway down the little hill I stop, incredulous: sitting in the dirt road looking up at me right below the open driver’s window is a HUGE GREEN BULLFROG the size of a cantelope! We stare at each other for a long moment, and then I drive on, checking in my rear-view mirror that I haven’t seen a mirage. I can’t tell you how many decades it’s been since I saw a frog like that, probably not since the early days of my life. It’s been years since I heard one, too. I know there’s a big pond at a nearby gallery tucked back in the trees, but this is still the high desert, and I just saw a goddamn bullfrog in the alley.

Cocktail hour view

Very tricky afternoon on my own. I sit down to do some boring detail work for a client, but my mind is a limpet that won’t let go of where it shouldn’t be. Then I have an idea. (You don’t need to know what it is, it’s just an idea that comes from something I see.) But of course I can do that, I say to myself. It’s as obvious as anything. Something lifts, and it’s like I’m back. Hey, I feel — well, normal… no, better than “normal.” What?? I see What Can Be. Outrageous!

And then, at the same time, AT THE VERY SAME TIME, I’m aware of the pain. The big pain, the all-encompassing thing that tries to kill me. I’m okay and the pain is still there, but I’m neither one. I ease toward the hurt for a test, almost close enough to fall in, then pull back to where there’s both at the same time.

Both. At. The. Same. Time.

Sitting outside just before sunset, I notice the plum tree branches blowing in the wind, yellow-white light flashing on the leaves. The tree is a pulsating field I’ve never seen before. It wants me to promise to remember.

Maybe we won’t exactly move, you know. Maybe something else is going on.

Now they tell me…

What if the problem with finding a house is ME?? It probably is. Can’t get away with nothin’ around here any more.

Driving into town to look at a house for rent. Why does she even want to look at that one? I rejected it yesterday without ever having seen it. That went over well: she ranted and raved, stomped her foot, and let me have it. When you get girls from Iowa stamping their feet, you’re in big trouble. I couldn’t say a thing (and didn’t try) for 20 minutes, which is fortunate. Besides, she was right.

What a paranoid sumbitch I am, scared someone’s going to say I can’t go outside and play. Everything’s a threat to my precious independence, like my wife, denying us a chance to live in a dump forever. Oh, a loveable dump, to be sure, the perfect bachelor pad, best place I’ve ever lived. Driving into town to look at a house for rent. God, the sky is beautiful! Dark blue over Taos Mountain with lightning bolts, brilliant sun and white clouds overhead. Eighty degrees and I’m cool in my long sleeves. Makes it hard to be an idiot.

We didn’t rent the place — too awkward, no wood heat, etc. — but we prowled around the neighborhood. My wife is pulled there. (This is big medicine, bastards beware.) The woman is a creature of wild unleashed passion and joy hemmed in by negativity and big smelly men. I for one spent years of my life holding her down out of madness. It didn’t work, and she’s still with me. I’m not just lucky, I’m obscene.

Driving back to Llano Quemado after latte and chai in Taos Plaza. My partner is blazing sane, friendly, and tuned in. (How do they DO that?!?) Despite this, I’m still eating broken glass from last night’s dressing down. I’ve been forgiven (in effect), she’s miles ahead, but I’m a bastard without an excuse, averaging two syllables per mile. When we get home, she goes off to practice the piano, and I take a nap, otherwise known as all I can manage without being tasered.

Cocktail hour under the elms. I look at the mountain and drink my tequila. She walks back from her studio all smiles from playing Bach, goes into the house to change her clothes, and comes back out with a glass of wine. I pour myself some more tequila, and we clink glasses. Usually one or the other of us makes a toast, but I’m not talking. Still touching her glass to mine, she leans in close, pulls her sunglasses down just far enough to drill me in the eye, and says, “You take a long time, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” I reply, turning away and downing my shot.

Later I will put on loud Cajun music from the 1930s and microwave burritos from Antonito while she makes a salad. I am lots less crazy but the weight of me has slowed us down. After dinner we have three chances to catch Callie the studio cat and blow each one.

It’s 2:00 a.m. now. Time to zap the last half-cup of coffee and answer email, order hard drives. Moths are beating against the window glass, welcome to America.