on swearing well

Have done now with son-of-bitch, jesus, and fuck – a modern sage-scholar does not use such truck. Instead please use fiddlesticks, dog-gone, or snap, perhaps too dagnabit or pishtosh or crap. Avoid then such phrases as shitballs and cunt, instead prefer dingbat and wallop and runt, then strike from the vocabulary foul words, except for gadzooks humbug hobnob and turds. By not saying repulsive words constantly, one builds up a storehouse of honor and clout, which few but the best among us figure out, whose spirits are honest whose hearts are happy.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on a Wotansday

I gasp when I see her and frown when she goes, I dare not to tell her what all others know. Her age is an issue, she is my junior, I try hard around her to not be a bore. She laughs at my funnies, her eyes sparkling, her slightest attention a momentous thing. I made though a promise, to not chase her down, but rather to sow my oats in other ground. Her company quickens, and heats up my soup, when I'm not around her my spirits can droop. To me she's attractive, upbeat, and stable, forever however unattainable.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on silent sitting

I sit now in silence, and weather the storm, seek refuge from frostbite here where it is warm. My own house is shuttered, it pipes drained and dry, so long as these howling winds tear through the sky. They bite and abuse me, they nip at my skin, I wish they would lessen their incessant din. Storm-clouds ride upon them, before which I flee, aware of their furious, frigid fury. I do this for safety, not neighbors to vex, please go back home quickly dear polar vortex.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on varying climes

The climates they vary, from that coast to this, sometimes they are torture sometimes purest bliss. For reasons aplenty mad people make do, with sweltering summers and cold winters too. Just why they all do this we may never know – now stripped to their skivvies, now shoveling snow. There are other places where cold winds don't blow, where plants ​and herbs outdoors the year-round can grow. To yearn for far climates is a tender curse, to think of it daily and fix it in verse. As icicles lengthen and fingers grow cold, it is now or never – don't wait 'till you're old. It's not rocket science or too hard to do, in Cali your wildest dreams can come true. So book that plane ticket and speed to the West, come see why the masses still call it the best.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on building backlog

For years I have been writing and posting to this and my other blogs, scrutinizing readership numbers and trying to figure out how to get more people to read. Interpreting the data it seems that I am writing about things other than those the average Internet user is interested in; a shitty piece about something lame and inconsequential will be viewed nearly as many times as one about something interesting and fun. Things are as Strunk & White warned they would be – rather than bowing social pressure and writing what people want to read I write what I want to read, what I find worthwhile, building up a reservoir of material for future readers to tap into and exploring issues I enjoy personally. History is replete with examples of artists discovered not in the prime of creativity but in its nadir, as their stars are fizzling and talent is rusting out. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on mending pipe

In my rush to flee this town I forgot to shut off the house's well-pump and drain its pipes. There, then, I bobbed in the Pacific Ocean, paddling for and surfing waves, while back East copper pipes were splitting open from the inside and spewing their waters indiscriminately onto carpet and tile and substrate wood flooring. It was not in fact until I had added a week to my stay in Los Angeles that I asked a friend to enter my home and cut power to the machines I had mistakenly left on. Fortunately, the areas that flooded contained nothing irreplaceable, fragile, or perishable; the only items soaked through were some cloth bags full of paper goods for recycling and a sleeve of steel scrubbing brushes that I had been storing under the kitchen sink. With a few dozen turns of a friend's pipe cutting tool and $35 worth of compression fittings and polyurethane tubing I was able to mend the torn sections of pipe so thoroughly that I can now flush my toilet, take a shower, and hand-wash the dishes with nary a wayward drip, drop, or leak. Thanks for coming, vortex polar, please return back to your cap, cold aplenty we are used to just not your relentless snap.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on feeling-creep

While bicycling in Los Angeles during the past two weeks, my mind was clear, my heart filled with song. Within hours, however, of returning to small-town, rural Pennsylvania, I felt myself filling with anger, discontent, impatience, and other patterns of negative thought. I wonder what has caused my modes of thinking to shift so violently. Is it my body transitioning from surf and sun and cycling to overcast skies and frigid temperatures? Is something in the water fouling my mood? Or am I correct in attributing this negativity to frustrations and malicious thoughts about me experienced by other people that are somehow seeping telepathically into my awareness? I am already becoming comfortable with these sensations, even though I do not necessarily wish to. For my own sanity and happiness I must leave this place and return to a place where I am valued and respected and loved. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on cali days

I awake well after dawn huddled in a nest of blankets on a tile floor. After relieving myself I restart the stalled movie from the night before. Hearing my noises, Tallbreeno sleepily emerges from his room, staring at me with a mischievous glint in his eye, saying, “Shmoke a bowl?” We partake, don wetsuit, grab surfboard, and make for Bay Street. After an hour and a half of surfing and paddling around in the mushy beach-break (me in just a half suit) we leave the ocean, limbs frozen and stiff as clubs but spirits high. “Another run before I head back East,” I say. We make a light lunch; we indulge. Proud are our twin mounts, and fast. Betas they are, of the Retrospec cut, and on them we haul ourselves silently and swiftly across the phaltscape. In an hour we ride from Main Street – Santa Monica to Venice & Vine. After effectively running up the steps at Runyon Canyon we ride over to Beechwood Canyon and smoke yellow balls of wax with a longtime friend in her dismally-lit apartment. With a purplish haze clouding our minds we return to the Westside for dinner at The Misfit. Nuuzstathena praise El Pueblo De Nuestra Seniora La Reina De Los Los Angeles and all whom she protects. Mahalo & huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on climbing mountains

Over the past week I summited Smith Mountain and threaded the Windy Gap. Buttocks burn as they recuperate from yesterday's ascent; joints creak as tendons grow back stronger than before, as sinews mend and thicken. Imagine taking the stairs up the Burj Khalifa in Dubai – our recent ascent took us nearly a half mile into the sky, approximately the height of the Burj itself. From Foothill Boulevard in Irwindale follow CA route 39 north to its end, then make for the burned-down fire tower south-east of the amphitheater. Bring water, a solid pair of shoes, and a windbreaker for the Gap. Lower the eyes, one foot then its pair, deep breaths, keep moving, and do not despair.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on western rhythms

It is all sun and tide now, wheel and pavement, sweat and joyous toil. We play against gravity and with it, carving our concrete and our watery waves, the surfboard and the smogsled the tools of our various trades. Broad are the slopes of our avenues, smooth the currents we ride. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on a Wotansday

Surfed Bay Street this AM, then bicycled from Venice Beach via Venice to Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Gathered some radical pictures of graffiti along the way, mashed hard on the boulevard, farted on a burrito, and so far have not touched myself. Bought a t-shirt for a sibling and visited Dulce Cafe, where I had a spirulina churro and a bacon donut hole with white glaze. Drank a genmaicha tea before taking the Red Line up into Little Armenia. Realized I had a snapped chain, had a new one installed at Safety Bicycles on Western and Santa Monica, then rode the 4 bus to Sepulveda. Mashed on Olympic to Exposition, which is a lazy river all the way to Bundy. The final act was climbing the rise on Ocean Park west of Lincoln, a Retrospec Beta smogsled churning stoutly beneath me. Mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

where ozone meets lincoln

Surf and sand and sun and cycling, gentle swells and golden craft, unencumbered but for reason, first of threes then nines abound. Pelicans as big as scooters, pup seals chasing playfully, jumping fishes, bubbles waking, now the livestock fill their sea. Even shadows, buxom beauties, queen of angels mend all quarrel, onward charge the mounted sages, opened mind and lessened toil. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on eating school

Now sign up for eating, now come to our school, we'll help you learn how to use food as a tool. The machines we're fixing are human bodies, we'll wake up the liver and flush the kidneys. We do this with brassica, walnut, and herb, cravings regulated and habits disturbed. Admission is open, tuition is free, it's paid for by luxury import goods fees. Come break your addiction, to fat and sugar, come learn how to make pickled plums in a jar. We don't use aluminum or cook with steel, we coach you to cherish, appreciate, feel. Good health builds on consuming foods fresh and whole, that wake up the body and ignite the soul. These plants they grow freely, right in your own yard, it takes conscious effort but isn't that hard. Our students get starter kits of seed and soil, complete but for sunlight and water and toil. Come learn about calcium and manganese, come learn how to cultivate and eat from trees. Our lessons are founded, in traditions old, we share them with pleasure, to us they are gold. We welcome all comers, who yearn to be free, who cherish their Happiness and Liberty. Please cancel that order, of bacon and meats, unleash your potential, say goodbye to sweets. Your system is majestic, powerful, true, if treated right it will supercharge you.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥