Manliness Exemplified

Okay. So. been an eventful two days back in AZ.

Went off to west clear creek canyon with my dad.

Got to our campsite, and not an hour after we got there, a girl comes up to our camp asking if we have have a phone. She told us that a guy in his forties had taken about a twenty foot rappelling fall and broken both of his ankles. So they get the guy to our camp, and we lay him down on our pads and sleeping bags. My dad ran up the trail out of the canyon and called emergency services. After he gets back down, the firefighters show up and stabilize the guy (His name was Buck) and then told him there was an air evac on it's way to helicopter him out of the canyon.

End of story, right? Wrong.

The helicopter gets over the canyon, makes an assessment of possible LZ's and decides there is no safe area to airlift the guy out. So Search and Rescue gets called out and they show up with a litter, which is like a stretcher, but with no wheels, and has to be carried by people. We get him on the stretcher, and then me, my dad, and the fire team proceed to take turns carrying this guy on the tiny trail out of the canyon. It took us two hours of sweating, slow moving, and navigating to get him out safely. Once we got to the top, they hoofed him off and onto a DPS helicopter which took him off to Flagstaff's hospital for medical care. We then drove his buddy to his car so he could get up to flag to see his friend.


We got home around 1:30. I'm scratched up, poison ivied, and sore all over, but it was worth it. I got to rescue a guy. I feel more manly overall.

Bob Dylan's got two cents on New York. How much does it cost for you to listen?

Rambling out of the wild west
Leaving the towns I love best
Thought I'd seen some ups and down
'Till I come into New York town
People going down to the ground
Building going up to the sky.

Wintertime in New York town
The wind blowing snow around
Walk around with nowhere to go
Somebody could freeze right to the bone
I froze right to the bone
New York Times said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years
I didn't feel so cold then.

I swung on to my old guitar
Grabbed hold of a subway car
And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride
I landed up on the downtown side:
Greenwich Village.

I walked down there and ended up
In one of them coffee-houses on the block
Got on the stage to sing and play
Man there said, Come back some other day
You sound like a hillbilly
We want folksingers here.

Well, I got a harmonica job begun to play
Blowing my lungs out for a dollar a day
I blowed inside out and upside down
The man there said he loved my sound
He was raving about he loved my sound
Dollar a day's worth.

After weeks and weeks of hanging around
I finally got a job in New York town
In a bigger place, bigger money too
Even joined the Union and paid my dues.

Now, a very great man once said
That some people rob you with a fountain pen
It don't take too long to find out
Just what he was talking about
A lot of people don't have much food on their table
But they got a lot of forks and knives
And they gotta cut something.

So one morning when the sun was warm
I rambled out of New York town
Pulled my cap down over my eyes
And heated out for the western skies
So long New York
Howdy, East Orange.

musings

Sixteen years ago to the day, The intrepid adventurer Bob Robertson set out on another of his fantastic adventures. Quite a sight as he prepped his hot air balloon for trans-continental travel culminating in what he perceived to be the greatest discovery of all modern existence, although what it was he would not, or could not relate. Many a curious youth and a few condescending critics were present as he heaved the last sandbag over the side, cut his tethers and floated off into the sky.
As he departed, he gave his customary two fingered salute, and casually affixed his flight goggles to his face. as he left, he said only one thing.


"The culmination of my travels ends in the discovery that there is nothing left to discover!"




No sign of the adventurer or his multi-colored balloon has been found.

now that I've gotten

where i'm going I don't know why I left. I miss my friends. I miss my city. I miss my lifestyle. I miss my girlfriend.




still more than a week away from departure. still more than a week away from the comfort of the norm.


Uncle is angry with me. Understandably, though. I fucked up. Shouldn't have done things to piss him off. I've made my uncomfortable bed and now I have to lay in it.


While the circumstances surrounding my trespasses were wrong, and WILL NOT be repeated ever again if I am any kind of determined, I still feel that the world in general, and unfortunately my conservative family, will never understand the real truth of the thing.



It is not harmful. No more than alcohol is. Less, even.

Soon enough, there will be no foolish laws to restrict the use of harmless substances. Soon enough, the frightened, insecure old men that run my beautiful country will be forced by the american people to repeal their laws against things they do not understand.


and with any luck, alcohol will be re-scheduled as the harmful, uncontrollable, unpredictable drug that it truly is.

It's time again

Time to go back to nebraska, back to rolling fields of corn, and a place where the traffic is bad on the freeway if there are more than two cars in front of you.

time to go back.








time to recharge.