[ Thursday, March 06, 2003 ]
Day 7 to Day 12
Beyond Everest base camp. 14:00 hours. Made it off the mountain alive after more than a day in the death zone. Taking the Knob Creek was the right decision after all. The advanced power square recipe probably saved my life, I think, (thanks Learning Camp!) and I've only lost three toes, so far. OK, to those of you who wrote in with Everest questions - I'm not really on Mt. Everest 'n shit - it's an allegory, no, a device, a plaything, a procedure . . . a proto-thread of an allegory . . .
Greetings from the famous and mysterious Grass Circles of the Los Padres National Forest. Took the interpretive tour with the park guide. First sighted in 1973, no one has yet arrived at an accepted scientific explananation for these strange circles carved out of grass in the Santa Barbara mountains. Some claim they were made by SUVs or pick-ups, but I have my suspicions. It's really about the mayan calendar, or something. Speaking of which, something entered our solar system at a VERY high rate of speed last week, went behind the sun, as hasn't emerged since, according to my campground neighbor Joshua, and his AM radio reports in the middle of the night, citing amateur astronomers. I didn't see it.
"It is 5 a.m. in Los Angeles . . . teenagers with automatic weapons, and boundless love . . ." Visited my friend Kathy in LA for a few days, the first photo is my well-timed documentation of her reaction after nearly hitting Brad Pitt and Milla Jovavich in a crosswalk. They're everywhere. The stars got away before I could reload. Next we're at Baby Gap in the Beverly Center. Baby Gap. The glamour never stops on the Bad F*cker Highway. Yoga at the Hollywood YMCA. Farmer's market. Kathy's kewl. Everything is good in the world, for a few days.
Some stereo floral radiographs from the collection of Albert Richards, at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA, which I visited with Chris. And below, a few of Ricky Jay's "Failing Dice" at the same museum. Mind-warping exhibits, arcane knowledge, conjuring, myth-creating, aberration sighting, superstition reporting.
Back at the Chris and Sue ranch, they frantically attempt to find and edit photos of themselves which I ominously threatened to post on my website.
After LA I moved back up the coast just above Malibu, and camped off the ocean at Pt. Mugu for the past three nights. Finally got on my bike and had a good 17+ mile ride through some fire roads and single track up in the Santa Monica Mountains above the park. Everything is again good in the world. See below.
I met Joshua at Pt. Mugu. He's a 62-year-old air force veteran who's been on the road since 1998, originally on foot pulling and pushing a radio flyer wagon, and then more recently switching to a bike with a b.o.b. trailer. Talk about homeland drifter. Jesus. Joshua is tanned, tough, and in better shape than 95% of my age group. He sports a "USA" baseball cap, a "Desert Storm" water bottle, and carries a 12" hunting knife strapped over his camo fatigues.
Joshua, because of his unique lifestyle, has been asked to speak at numerous Christian churches and Boy Scout troops in California and Arizona, and after nearly all of such speaking engagements has been threatened with physical harm by scout masters, christian businessmen, ministers, and other decent and civilized white people. It seems, (I heard a good part of his standard speech while we stood in my camp drinking cans of Coors Light together), that he gradually develops in these speeches the message that modern American capitalism and consumerism is completely and hopelessly un-Christlike and immoral, through and through. Threatened with physical harm by scout masters and decent Christian folk. Fuck yeah, Joshua! Joshua gives new meaning to the phrase "Live Free or Die."
For some reason I can't articulate, I had reservations about asking Joshua for a photograph for my website. [3/6/2003]
PAY ATTENTION BLACK ROCK CITY
