First some business: I sent out a batch of dvds to those who wanted them. Some were apparently defective. If yours is, please email me at allan@banditobooks.com and put ‘Crap DVD’ in the subject box and give me your address again, formatted like a shipping label. I’ll send another. This has been really upsetting.
Also, and this is embarrassing: On the site I ask for $5 for the dvd to cover my costs in burning and sending it. With the return envelope I also have a note suggesting that if you like the film you might consider sending more than $5 (given that I spent six plus years making the film, etc., etc.) I shouldn’t have sprung this on you in the mailer. It should have been on the site. Sorry! (A fiver is all you really owe.)
I do need financial help to finish Part Two (plus get on the road). You can also contribute via the site’s Paypal Donate buttons.
Okay, the actual Blog Entry (#3):
This is a big deal, this blog entry. Not so much the words but the fact that you are reading them. To me, I mean. In fact, I’m nervous right now. See, I consider computers and the Internet to be some sort of… someone once said… hold on…
(Imagine that about 20 seconds go by)
…it was Arthur C. Clarke, the famous science fiction writer and futurist who said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
During the above 20 seconds I started to google the quote but didn’t get farther than ‘Any sufficiently advan…’ and the goddamn whole sentence was right there in the box along with Arthur C. Clarke’s name, trailing off into the history of… everything.
What’s going on here?
Is this good? Meaning that it’s so easy to find out stuff? And should paranoid nut jobs like me – maybe along with the rest of you – be concerned that some… entity…some it, knows what I’m looking for before I can even get a question out?
Right. An algorithm is what did it. Is that your answer?
You think because you can come up with a fancy name that you’ve explained anything? Don’t get me started.
Point being that this blog post will be the first time I’ve… attempted (we’ll see how it goes) to post a message all by my own self, ever since… holy shit, ever since the spring of 2001. Back in those days I had a ‘newsletter’ (which is technically what this still is, for now anyway) that I’d write and then paste in the addresses of subscribers manually, like a regular email nowadays.
By the way, if there’s anyone still out there who was listening to my bullshit in 2001, please get in touch, say hi. I admire your stamina. You must be older now, huh? What have you been up to?
A bit more rambling: after I moved down to Costa Rica in the summer of 2001 – right, pre-9/11 – I ran into a guy who ended up doing all my site stuff. Everything. I didn’t have to go near or think about any fucking algorithms…
By the way, up a few paragraphs I misspelled the word as ‘algorythm’ and it, and I still don’t know what I mean by it, the entity, auto-corrected me.
Plus: I had to hold a gun to my MacBook’s head – figuratively speaking — to get it to permit me to misspell it in the last sentence.
Is this good?
And the thing is, as some of you have noticed, I have typos and misspellings all over my goddamn website, so what’s with it, whatever entity it is that is keeping an eye on my spelling (let alone what I want to know about sufficiently advanced shit and magic) letting me make all those errors but not permitting me to misspell algorithm?
Huh? What does that tell you about How the World Works? Did it get aggravated because ‘algorithm’ (Al Gorithm?) is like… something personally meaningful? (To ‘Al?) Remember HAL from 2001, A Space Odyssey, his attitude? What it led to?
Know what I mean? No? All right. Okay. Neither do I.
What’s my point? Do I have one? Yes:
I got directions – a full-blown tutorial – from my site… guru, or witch (in the non-evil, good witch sense) since it’s a she (can gurus be female?), or whatever, on how to do this, how to post this sucker. And I’m going to try. In a minute… (I have to write it first.)
…Like I say, I’m nervous, maybe putting off the inevitable. See, if I can’t do this here and now in my hovel overlooking Montauk harbor, how am I going to do it on the road in the boonies? (Hey, I don’t buy pens if you gotta click ‘em to get ‘em to work.) What if I run into a crashed UFO wherever I’m going and need to alert you?
But what is this post supposed to be about? I mean since Gus and I are not on the road yet and this is clearly a poor example of critical thinking and/or How the World Works, which is what this blog is supposed to be about.
So I got to figure out something.
My blabbing about pre-9/11 and the spring of 2001 reminded me of what I was doing then, which was taking care of Mom, who was dying of cancer. So I’m thinking I’ll paste in a bit about that, about that time of my life and about Mom. Some of you may have already read this, but here it is anyway:
January 16th, 2001 was the day of Mom’s last birthday before she died. Mom was in a wheelchair now – her bones were too fragile from the tumors for her to be hoofing around, even on a walker. The doctors were afraid that if she fell she’d just sort of shatter.
Mom hadn’t been out of the house in a while, not even to go to the cancer clinic just down the street. She had made the decision to go the hospice route, which meant no more chemo or radiation treatments. Going the hospice route is essentially giving up on life, or at least the possibility of an extended one.
Although Mom denied it up and down, I believe a part of this decision was a financial one. See, the way it works in the U.S. of A is that when an old person still feels like there’s hope and is continuing treatment, Medicare won’t pay for certain things, like pain medication – for which, toward the end, Mom was spending about $4,000 a month. You give up and go the hospice route, Medicare pays for your pain medication. Medicare’s motive here is to persuade old folks to give up as soon as possible, to save government money on expensive stuff like chemo and radiation treatments.
Mom’s concern was that she was going through my inheritance with all the money she was spending on pain medication. Mom never said this to me, knowing I’d flip. I found out by overhearing words to this effect one day when Mom was talking to Ellen.
Although arguments with Mom were unheard of, Mom and I argued about her quitting treatments and going the hospice route. During these arguments Mom lied, which was also unheard of. Mom denied that the inheritance issue had anything to do with her decision. Said it was a relief, really, to quit the treatments. No more bullshit from the doctors about possible remissions and so forth. When I said I’d overheard her tell Ellen another story, Mom said she was just confused that day with Ellen and didn’t know what she was talking about.
But the point being that Mom was on hospice care and hadn’t been out for a while. Mom’s doctor had strongly recommended against Mom going anywhere; the fear of falling issue. Now it’s January 16th, 2001, Mom’s birthday, and I tell Mom we’re going to the beach. Mom’s eyes light up, not only because she loves the beach as much as I do but because she loves going against her doctor’s orders. She gets this look like a kid who’s about to get away with something.
So I bundle up Mom, wheel her out to the car, put her in the passenger’s seat, pile Honey in, and we go to the beach. It’s mid-winter and the beach is deserted. Blue skies, bluer sea. Beautiful. Problem is, I can’t wheel Mom across the sand down to the water; that just won’t work. I find a beach access for cars. It’s got a chain and lock across it. There’s a lifeguard station nearby so I go there. There’s a lone cop inside, not a lifeguard. He’s not a beach cop, which is sort of a semi-cop, but a full-blown cop in full cop regalia. As soon as the cop swivels around in his cop-chair and shoots me a cop-look, I know I’m in for trouble. Think central casting for a cop you know is going to give you trouble.
I tell the cop I’d like to take a ride on the beach and could he maybe unlock the chain across the access? He asks to see my beach-driving permit. I don’t have one. I can tell this pleases him. Sorry, he says, not meaning it. I say I have Mom in the car and it’s her birthday and she’s sick and I want to take her down to the beach. I know this isn’t going to work, but I give it a shot. The cop stares at me, frowning, then gets up and goes to the window and looks out. Sees Mom and Honey in the car. Looks at me for a bit. He doesn’t have the key to the chain, he says. Okay, I say, Thanks anyway. I go to leave. He says Wait a minute. Calls someone. They don’t have the key and the guy who does is off that day. The cop calls someone else and gets the guy’s home number but no one is home. He makes some other calls. No one knows where the key is. The cop hangs up and sits there shaking his head and frowning. I tell him Thanks anyway and go to leave. He says Wait a minute. He calls the fire department and they send an emergency vehicle, one of those big red and white jobs with a mini-hospital inside and the Jaws of Life and a crew of uniformed guys. The thing comes roaring up with its lights flashing. The cop talks to the head guy and then they get out a bolt cutter and sever the chain across the beach access.
Mom and Honey and I drive down to the beach and have a fine time. The point being, though: Sometimes people will surprise you. I mean in a good way.
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Come to think of it, the above makes more sense in the context of where it originally appeared: at the end of a memoir wherein everyone who could possibly fuck with me did so; I was thinking the anecdote would provide a little balance. I know it’s too late and all but pretend you knew that…while you were reading it… retrospectively.
Mom in her 20s
By the way, here’s a photograph of Mom when she was in her 20s.
Beautiful, huh? She was beautiful at the end too. And… good. Something to strive for, all of us. Be good and beautiful at the end.
If you want to read the whole book from which that passage comes, go HERE and download the eBook at the bottom. Don’t worry about the Donation thing (unless you’re feeling magnanimous). Just download the goddamn book. It’s pretty good — check out the Reader Reviews on Amazon.com some time.
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A reminder: What this blog is going to be about is Life on the Road (with dog) and How the World Works via Critical Thinking. If you’re thinking that this is a weird juxtaposition of subjects then let me (borderline smugly) remind you that my first book – which became a ‘cult hit’ and was bought for the movies by John Cusack & Co. — was about marijuana smuggling and quantum physics. The relationship between the two. (There was a dog involved in that one also.) Don’t believe me? Go HERE.
Seriously, check out those 90 Reader Reviews. Notice how far down you have to go to find less than 5 stars. Point being that if I pulled that off, by god I can do this.
If it seems I put a lot of stock in Reader Reviews, I do. And keep in mind that it’s basically you I put that stock in.
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Postscript: It took three days for me to try to post the above entry. I couldn’t get it together. My site… guru/witch had to do it. I gave up.
I don’t know whether it, the entity, had anything to do with my abysmal failure. I have a theory but will keep it to myself.
This is going to be a blog soon and because of the way it works in the cyber world, I will have to ask you to re-subscribe. (Now I’m really nervous.)
If you want to keep hearing from me, be prepared to re-subscribe. Sorry!
This is the only place I see where I can comment…
Your motorhome would be perfect for BURNING MAN. Unfortunately, due to the ridiculously harsh conditions, pets are discouraged.
Have you ever been?
I might be one of those deadbeats who received a DVD, I don’t know as I have been in Vietnam since March, and will be here until August.
I first heard about you while flying to Hong Kong from SFO ten years ago this month, from a couple who were sitting near me. I don’t think we exchanged names, etc. though. Perhaps they thought our perspectives were similar.
I have certainly enjoyed the ride since, following your adventures!
I have been traveling in SE Asia since 1974 but ten years ago was the first time I came here to Vietnam. I might have much earlier but I was a successful recipient of Conscientious Objector status from the SSS in 1965.
That short visit radically changed my life…
Here I am living here about nine months of the year, and have been for the last 8+ years. I love Vietnam! I also have a farm in Sonoma County, about forty minutes north of SF, where my recording business is located, PRAIRIE SUN RECORDING.
Best wishes, and if I did receive a DVD you will get a check in August.
Peace and Love