26 January 2009

A random BIM - BIM 17 from 1997

Ballantyne's Inspired Musings #17

January 1997

Vox Clamantis in Deserto

The voice of one crying in the wilderness

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Mount Everest of Philosophical and Spiritual Journals

BIM is a subscription publication -- $20 on up for an inspired period. The more you send, the more you get! Lagniappes in the past have included photographs, books, Tibetan incense burners, turquoise, sage.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chinese Horoscope Compatibility

Rat

1












Ox

1

3











Tiger

4

6

5










Rabbit

5

2

3

3









Dragon

1

5

5

3

2








Snake

3

1

6

2

1

5







Horse

6

5

1

4

3

4

2






Goat

5

5

3

1

5

3

2

2





Monkey

1

3

5

3

1

3

5

3

1




Rooster

4

1

4

6

2

1

3

4

5

5



Dog

3

4

1

2

6

3

2

5

3

5

2


Pig

2

3

2

2

3

6

3

2

2

3

1

2


Rat

Ox

Tiger

Rabbit

Dragon

Snake

Horse

Goat

Monkey

Rooster

Dog

Pig















1 - excellent 2 - successful 3 - good

4 - fair 5 - awkward 6 - clash

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Hand Job

“Listen, this jerk can barely speak English. Drop the anger and treat this as a creative problem!” I said to myself as the swarthy at the copy center refused to redo BIM16 as two sided copies. I don’t have a strong pusher anyway. He had to eat 250 Christmas cards from the previous customer, a Laguna cop, who had NOT wanted her name printed on the cards. So I’m easy, at least overtly. I do much better at covert anger when I’m totally in control. Yeah, yeah, I know. F it. At my age Forgive has had to become the F word in my life. I can’t afford to mail out 18 pages! What to do. It takes me 6 hours to figure it out. Half my subscribers are in and around Laguna. Deliver them, and any cards I have done, on my bicycle by hand, and then worry about the rest of the BIMs later. Brilliant. I did about 20 miles on my bike in full sun. After I finished I was cycling back down the canyon and someone passes me blowing the horn like crazy. She pulls in front of me. I delivered a card to her a few hours ago. We watch the sun set from Dietrich’s Coffee house, she with her latte and me with my Starbuck’s coffee. I refuse to drink anything except Starbuck’s coffee so I walked over there and got a grande and then brought it back to Dietrich’s.

Goin’ Too Far

“The unconscious always tries to produce an impossible situation in order to force the individual to bring out his very best. Otherwise one stops short of one’s best, one is not complete, one does not realize oneself. What is needed is an impossible situation where one has to renounce one’s own will and one’s own wit and do nothing but trust to the impersonal power of growth and developments.”

C. Jung, Jung and the Tarot by Sallie Nichols

“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what’s next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never actually knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.” Agnes de Mille, as quoted in ‘The Artist’s Way’

I wound up like Ewell Blackwell, the sidearm throwing pitcher on the New York Yankees in the 1950’s except I was throwing the car keys and SHE wasn’t at bat. She had gone way too far telling me she would drop me off at a coffee shop and pick me up in 2 hours instead of letting me use her daughter’s truck to browse around Sport Chalet when I had been driving it around all afternoon. The wrangling started at dinner at the Chinese restaurant. This is my current favorite place serving real down-home mountain Chinese food like the Tibetans in Nepal eat, almost. They don’t have water buffalo dumplings or yak stew but lots of other stuff. Anyway, I think the restaurant people were perturbed as her voice got louder and louder and then she started swearing at me, in English. I could see the waitresses looking at us with pained looks on their faces.

So here we are in the church parking lot wrangling over the keys. I wrest the car keys out of the ignition and jump out. “Oh, so you are going to trap me over here.” That’s when I wound up my throwing arm, my left, the same as Ewell’s, and adjusted down in mid-throw so as to not hit the window. She was behind the door of the truck. The keys thwacked into the door. In a flash I set off at my normal 4 mile an hour flat ground walking pace heading for Laguna. I walked several hundred yards before I began to think I had gone too far; Laguna was about 11 miles away. I didn’t slow me one bit as I diagonaled across the lawn of the adjacent church and then headed up Newport Coast Drive. Shit. It would take me 3 or 4 hours to walk home and she would beat me there, which would piss me off immensely. I was determined to get there first and take her suitcase and anything else lying around the house and put it all outside before she got there.

I settled into a fast pace in the cool clear night air. It was beautiful out. I began hitchhiking as cars went by. I have NEVER seen anybody walking on Newport Coast except way up on the top near all the new housing, never here on the middle of nowhere especially at night. No one hitchhikes in Newport Beach. As Gurujii used to say, “Here in America, even the beggars have cars.” I took off my marathoner's hat thinking I’d look a bit more respectable. I had to get one up on HER and get there first! I walked and walked and thumbed and thumbed. I was pissed. I had the thought I should stop being pissed off in order to better accomplish my immediate objective, which was to get a ride. I forced a big smile and exuded respectability. The next car stopped -- a good ¼ mile past me. I began to jog toward it thinking they might be jerking me around waiting for me to get close so they could take off. I walked and jogged up to the open window of the new gray Acura with her hand beckoning me in. I stood back non-intrusively and said, “I’m going to Laguna Beach.” “Okay.” I got in and had just fully plunked myself into the beautiful gray leather seat when she asked, “You don’t have a gun, do you?” “Oh, no. I used to have guns when I was a kid but no, no.” I said, shaking my palms in the air. I thanked her and she asked me what had happened. “Oh my truck broke down," I lied. I hated having to lie as I presumed all hitchhikers did, but I was sure it wouldn’t sound good if I said, “Oh my girlfriend ditched me in Irvine.” “Oh, was that your truck parked by the side of the road with the flashers on?” “No, mine is at the church down on Bonita Canyon.” “I never do this," she said, “pick up hitchhikers, but I figured who’s ever truck that was was in trouble. Sorry I stopped so far past you but I was doing 80 and it was hard to see you with that dark jacket on.” “Where are you going in Laguna?” I asked. “Bluebird Canyon.” “Oh my God, I live only a few blocks from there!” I told her right where it was. She knew the house and drove past it every day. I told her over and over again it was a miracle she had stopped. She worked at a bank. When I asked her where she lived in Bluebird Canyon she said “Actually off the canyon proper….” I interrupted her exact directions and said “Oh my God, I lived right there at the corner for 3 months last year. “Oh, you mean d….’s house?” she asked. “Right!”, I said. Yeah, right, d…., the red headed maniac, the head warden of Solemom prison.

Gerry, my benefactor, and I totally relaxed. I told her of all my bank work back in New York and that I now write and photograph. I gave her my card and told her to E-mail me. It had taken me only 35 minutes to get from throwing the keys to stepping in my front door. I heard HER later from my bed on the phone with Dave and then later when she came to get her stuff. She shouldn’t have called me a conehead a week ago either!

The next day I had too much to do, lots of errands, Xmas mailing then a 14 mile hike. I did all the mail at the Silverado Canyon post office. It's the size of the Laguna Beach post office and no one is ever in there. Well, there was one person in there ahead of me about 4 years ago in the summertime. She and the postmistress were mulling over what to take to the next day’s pot luck luncheon. They talked and talked while I waited and waited. Finally I loudly interjected, “Why don’t you fix gazpatcho?” a cold fresh vegetable soup. That stopped them cold and I was soon served.

I didn’t get hiking until 1:01. Still with remnants of the flu. I wouldn’t be back until 5:30 or later in total darkness. I headed out. It was arduous and slow going; I didn’t make it to the big orange wind sock until 2:50. I was wiped. I tussled with whether to continue or go back down the way I came up and be reasonable. I almost went over to lie down in the sun when I thought, “No. You need to go too far! Over the edge. Go for it. So what if you have to walk out the last hour in total darkness.” I set off on the final 8 miles of the walk along a sun-drenched ridge from which I could see Catalina, LA downtown, Ontario airport, Mt. Baldy and the San Bernardino mountains. I had only gone 200 yards when I heard someone coming. I pulled my vest down over the knife in my waistband, stuck out my thumb and the guy in the big white 4 wheel drive Suburban stopped with his passenger window rolled down. “I’m going over to the Corona road," I said. “Okay, just tell me where to let you off.” He didn’t ask me if I had a gun and I couldn’t tell if he had seen the knife. Guys don’t really care if other guys have guns anyway. The half hour ride cut at least an hour out of the hike but none of the 1000’ additional vertical feet of climbing. My driver worked all over as a communication consultant and I told him to take a possible project he had in Malaysia as Kuala Lumpur, the capital, was a great place. As I came down the final stretch to the parking lot I could clearly see the sun setting over a silvery ocean behind Catalina.

I got to the Chinese restaurant right about 6; this was the third time in three days I had eaten there. I ordered 3 different appetizers and then asked the waitress about a dish I had seen a customer across from me eating last night that looked like beans or peanuts. I show her the last joint of my little finger. “Peanut, bean?” she said in very broken English. “No. There nothing on menu like that.” I asked her if there is something on the Chinese menu that isn’t on the English menu. “No, only one item. Rice soup.” I hear her and her cohorts talking about me in Chinese in the back. I sense they’re miffed about the scene SHE threw in the restaurant last night. Lost face or something. Little do they know I am the original ugly American having thrown fits all over Asia if things don’t go my way with the petty thieves, rickshaw drivers, yak herders, hotel owners and anyone else who I think is screwing me around! The waitress brings me a small dish of what looks like dog meat, actually shredded tofu. “Maybe this it.” “Maybe," I say thinking my vision is failing. Next time I’m going right over to any strange food and photograph it or something. I don’t care if I look like some barbarian westerner anyway. The hell with it. I want what I want and I want it now!

I begin to eat. Two minutes later she delivers a small dish of bean like things to the table across from me. I immediately call her over. “That! What’s that?” “Ohhh, that peanut," she says. “I’ll take some.” When she brings me the boiled peanuts I ask, “Is this on the menu somewhere?” “No, solly.” I decide not to inquire further into this oriental inscrutability but leave only $7 for a $6.35 bill, far less than my normal one dollar tip AND I walked right up to the register to pay not waiting for my check.

I drive over to Mother’s Health Foods to get some carob chips, my current favorite binge food now that I’m totally off sugar forever, once again. Three Buddhist monks in gray robes enter right before me speaking the usual strange language and they end up standing right in front of the carob chip bin. I try to read their minds. Does God not want me to have carob chips today? Two of the monks are women and one is an older man. I wonder if he can see that my crown chakra is real open and the top of my head is hot? Finally, not able to contain myself any longer, I go up to the man and ask him, “What country are you from?” He gives me a ‘I got no gun’ double palm shaking saying nothing. I go to check out thinking I’ll have to use my ATM card. The pound of carob chips rings up on the brand new computerized register as 21 cents. I say nothing and give the cashier the change. I am certain the monk ‘did something’, carob chip-wise. I get home at 10 after a church meeting.

I call my mother to thank her for a Christmas check she sent and, wonder of wonders, after 10 years she thanks me for finding the managed care facility she is in in Florida and how well it has worked out for her and she thanked me for cleaning up her affairs. Ten years.

Three days later Loretta comes over for dinner and then we do an exercise of letting our inner child journal about Christmas. In response to the question, ‘Can you remember a happy Christmas?’ I write “NO! Everyone always dies around Christmas," remembering my two sisters. Later that night I am at the computer and hear a noise out back. It's HER standing there in a formal evening dress and heels. She is just getting back from a dance and wants to use the phone. “Sure.” She said she had a message from her sister whom she never talks to. SHE starts falling apart. “I wonder if it’s my Mom?” I offer to dial her sister for her, as her calling card no longer works. She bursts into tears and sobs uncontrollably. Her mother has died hours before. She stays and talks and cries for a half hour before leaving. She hasn’t spoken to her mother for months. I had tried to get her to call only a while ago to get her correct birth time.

I become deathly sick in the middle of the night, diarrhea and vomiting, as I’ve been poisoned. I cannot move from bed the next morning. SHE calls at 10:30 and wants a ride to Newport; she’s too upset to drive. I barely roll out of bed, slip on my sheepskin boots, grab my yoga headstand mat and the Bible and shuffle out the door. I leave on the running shorts I sleep in, actually pair number two as I had run in pair number one that night. We get to Newport at noon. I am so wan I don’t say a word the whole way. I meditate and do yoga on the lawn in the bright sun then stand on my head in a full lotus for ½ hour leaning against a big green dumpster while reading the book of James. A few people see me but no one comes close. This is Newport Beach. As we drive back to Laguna past Newport Coast I spot a Christmas tree in the bike lane. I stop. “You wanna tree?” “No, my daughter’s place is too small.” I back the car up and inspect the tree. I’m sure it won’t last long here. The tree is perfect, about 7 feet tall and probably cost a $125 if bought at Roger’s Gardens in Newport. I don’t think I need it but take it anyway. As I drive off part of me brightens considerably. I suspect it’s my inner child. SHE knows of no one who needs a tree. I haven’t had one for 14 years. I suddenly realize I can start new traditions at any time! I can keep the tree for myself! It’s here now filling the house with a lovely pine scent. The top of the tree misses the ceiling by an inch. SHE said God gave me the tree for being of service to her.

Dave comes in just after the tree is up. “Did you cut off a little bit of the stump first?” I think for a minute, “No, in my family we had a tradition of never cutting the stumps of Christmas trees.” There is uproarious laughter. I speculate aloud about taking a Tylenol Sinus as a rectal suppository. SHE cries and dozes for almost two hours then asks me to take her to her daughter’s house. Today I notice she left a scarf and a headband here so I put them on the tree with all my Christmas cards. SHE’s on my machine when I get home, crying. I can’t reach her.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Growing Up

I once took an unbelievable trip to Mexico with a friend when I was 19. I had been kicked out of Dartmouth for a variety of excesses and at my father’s suggestion had enrolled in the Marine Corps reserves and was to be inducted to go off to boot camp. However, the Sunday I was to be sworn in I had a funny feeling this was not such a good idea and I didn’t go. The sergeant called up when I didn’t show and I told him I wasn’t coming. He was pissed but I was safely miles away and knew I had made the right decision. No cannon fodder I. My parents were tweaked, mostly because it didn’t look good to have the U.S. Marines pissed at the Ballantyne’s. My father simply said he didn’t want me commuting to work in Manhattan on the same train with him every morning so I went and packed up a suitcase and the next day entrained for Washington where two of my best high school drinking buddies had set up ‘home’. One was working and the other was independently wealthy from both his parent’s deaths and was meandering through school half-heartedly. So, we became a reasonably happy threesome.

Many, many hilarious incidents ensued over the next two years fueled mostly by alcohol in any number of imbibable forms. Fly acquired his nickname by climbing drunk right up the side of a 2 story apartment building gripping only the decorative bricks that protruded ½” from the corners of the walls. His climb was so we could get into some girl’s apartment who were so horrified at our shenanigans they tried to lock us out. As I recall these girls had come over to the apartment and Fly and Berger had gotten drunk so the girls wanted to go home. Berger and Fly refused to drive them and demanded they walk the five or so miles. I magnanimously told them I’d drive them and got Berger’s keys. He worked for the Buick regional office so we were always driving around in brand new cars and Fly had a new Stingray, the first of the modern Corvettes. His would do about 150 mph, I recall him doing 135 past the apartment building one night and he was easily able to outrun the New Jersey State troopers who then drove those big Chryslers that would do a good 130 if the troopers weren’t too chicken thinking of their homes and loved ones. Anyway, the two girls got into the wagon and I got on the road back to DC and put the accelerator to the floor and didn’t let up. The wagon rolled up to about 110 or so, the girls were screaming at their supposed savior and I was keeping a very drunk straight poker face. After the girls ran into their building yelling at me that I was crazy, Fly and Berger rolled up in the Corvette and Fly climbed up the wall of the building onto their balcony and knocked on the slider, totally freaking them out when they thought they were safe from us. Berger and I were on the lawn yelling up at him, “Hey, the human fly! Get ‘em Fly!”

I got a menial job for $85 per week wrapping paper in a printer’s mailroom. This printer did a lot, as in millions of dollars, of printing for my father’s corporation and Wayne, my father, awarded the contracts. I’m still not sure how it happened but the three of us got drunk one night and decided to go to Mexico for ‘a while’. Berger had to work so Fly and I took off in the Stingray. I told Berger to call my work and tell them I wouldn’t be in as I was having my stomach pumped. He did and I guess the general manager of the printer called up every hospital in the Washington area trying to find me before calling my father in New York telling him I had disappeared. No one knew where I was for weeks. Anyway, Fly and I drove and drank for about 6 glorious sunny days before arriving in Monterey, Mexico where we parked the Stingray in a fancy hotel parking garage and drank for a few days. I can vividly recall pulling into a gas station in Biloxi, Mississippi and opening the door of the low slung ‘Vette and empty Jax beer cans falling out, clattering to the ground. I LOVE that drive along the Gulf coast, the Florida panhandle, Mobile, Biloxi, Baton Rouge.

Six years ago I was driving cross country with one Elizabeth, who foolishly thought she would like to move to Laguna Beach with me. She had spent a week camping with me in the Sierras the summer I lived in my tent and a friend of mine up in the desert had done a remarkable healing on Elizabeth’s cancer. We were driving her Honda and I drove straight through from West Palm Beach, Florida to Houston, Texas. I was 49 years old at the time and she was 34. I thought nothing of driving like that, like Fly and I had driven. Elizabeth was wrecked. Her back hurt. I told her to lie on top of the luggage and sleep. She slept through the one stop I made at a huge truck stop diner in Baton Rouge. I went in and ordered three bowls of grits, mixed in my own raisins, 4 or 5 pats of foiled butter and ate it all. Then I went into the parking lot and did a little yoga and off I went. The sun was just coming up as we blasted across the Mississippi River with me happy as a clam to be out on the open road. Elizabeth became more and more furious. When we got to Houston I slept for about 12 hours straight in an easy chair I sat down in. When I got up Elizabeth was threatening to return to New Jersey and her Mom’s house and leave me stranded in Houston. Her cousin, with whom we were staying, was a prison guard and had left his 9 millimeter Beretta automatic pistol on the kitchen counter. I had the fleeting thought that I should either shoot Elizabeth or shoot myself. Instead, I called a friend long distance in California and a few minutes later I was OK. Elizabeth flipped again when all the cousins had a Texas style barbecue for us and I opened a can of garbanzo beans at the dinner table and ate them as I am a total vegetarian. Elizabeth and I only made it to Albuquerque before she turned back. A friend later suggested that I should have weaned Elizabeth away from her mother a little at a time by taking her away for two weeks first, then three. Two years later I visited this friend several times in the Orange County jail where he had been put by HIS girlfriend. TWICE. All charges got dropped but he was in for months until it got settled. So much for good advice and so much for the Gulf coast.

Fly and I were considered minor celebs wherever we went as Route 66 was then popular on TV and the Stingray model of the Corvette was brand new and Fly’s was the first seen in person by everyone. I still recall floating slowly past this little Mexican kid in Laredo having just crossed the border and his eyes getting real big and he looks at us go by and says, “Hey! Stingray!.” From this and a few non-automotive related incidents Fly got that as another nickname. This was 1963 and down south it was to be almost another 10 years before the 1955 Chevy was no longer the most popular single car on the road AND they all wanted to race the ‘Ray. As I recall, the ‘Ray was never beaten on the open road or the streets of Washington including the 427 Ford we drag raced right through the middle of downtown one night.

Anyway, Monterey was fun. We stayed a few days in a nice hotel. I found a great bar a block away and drank there all night. The urinal was a tiled trough right in the barroom so when you had to pee you just walked over to the wall. It was real homey for me as Animal House at Dartmouth had a big drain around the perimeter of the basement bar where most of us peed and threw up. In my favorite place back home in upper middle class suburbia, Foley’s Bar and Grill in Pleasantville, NY, sometimes I’d just stay at my barstool and piss on the floor. What did I care. Foley’s is where I met my now ex-wife. Carol and her sister Margaret were drinking shots of tequila with Lowenbrau chasers when I ambled over and introduced myself. This was one of the few drinking contests I ever lost. Back to Monterey. It was about 7 AM when I finally finished up drinking one fine weekday morning and I recall Mexicans in busses going to work looking in disgust at me, the ugly Americano, barfing on the sidewalk. We left town after lunch one day. We were having a respectable lunch in the hotel and Fly had ordered arroz con pollo, chicken and rice. He didn’t want much of it so I convinced him to take it with him so he shoved the rice and pieces of chicken into the pocket of the Army field jacket he was wearing. We went out on the street and hailed a cab and I directed the cabby to take us to the edge of town. We got out and proceeded to hitchhike 1440 miles to Acapulco. It was a blast.

Fly and I found a great hotel in Acapulco for about $1.50 a day and spent 2 weeks there eating, drinking and going to the beach. The hotel owner began to bug us to pay our bill after 2 weeks so I called home collect from Acapulco and asked my parents to wire me $300 so Fly and I could continue vacationing and get out of the country. I still recall the “Oh! Oh! Wayne, Wayne come here” from my mother when the operator asked if she would accept a collect call from Acapulco, Mexico. We left a few days later and, feeling flush, flew to Monterey. The pilot finally landed the ancient DC-4 on the third pass after coming within 50 feet of the ground twice and then applying full power and climbing up again, for no reason ever explained to anyone. You should have heard all these grown men saying their prayers in Spanish.

More driving, driving, driving and Fly and I arrive back in DC and one day I float back into work to wrap paper and printed matter again as though nothing had happened. No one ever said a word to me about being away. Codependent wimps. A few weeks later the entire company staff was given an aptitude test for computers, one of the first commercial applications in the world. I passed, at the top, of course, and so began my career as a computer programmer and systems designer. I was able to drive up to New York and bring my motorcycle down to DC in one of Berger’s station wagons. Then the wild stuff really began. I still recall shortly before getting kicked out of the apartment complex testing my motorcycle in the parking lot and cramming the throttle full on while fiddling with the carburetor. I looked up and a woman had thrown her two bags of groceries into the air and just jumped out of my way. I passed the groceries eye level in midair on their way down and within a few inches of the woman. I fixed whatever the problem with the carburetor was though. Fly and I found a rooming house across the street from the zoo in DC proper for $20 a week for a nice big room with private bath and we began much more genteel drinking in Georgetown and upper Connecticut avenue.

I rode my motorcycle day and night, winter and summer. Frequently, I was so drunk I could barely walk, but I could always ride. Once, I sort of passed out after kicking the Gold Star. It didn’t start and I came down on the seat and sat there immobilized as the bike slowly fell over. I hit the pavement full on with my left elbow, pulled myself out from under, righted the bike and tried again. I usually closed the bars at 2 AM and then rode over to one of those diner type places to eat. These were the type of places that made omelets by whizzing eggs in Hamilton Beach malted milk mixers then pouring the mess on a greasy grill. Sometimes we’d go over to the black section of town, safer then than now, and eat scrapple and Taylor ham and chitllins and eggs. Fly’s late night favorite was one of those cheap hamburger joints, 10 for a dollar at one time. We called ‘em deathballs and they were about the size of silver dollars. Remember them? Before Lyndon Johnson devalued our currency to fight the Viet Cong. One time the landlady had put Fly in another room as he had been away traveling for some weeks. This pissed us off so one night when Fly and I came back drunk to the rooming house we went into this kids room with Fly’s 30-30 rifle and put it to his head and told him he had to change rooms. We were just screwing around but this kid, Alvin, I think, from West Virginia was so scared he moved out totally the next day and didn’t say a word. I recall us telling him we’d ‘get’ him if he ever said anything to the Burn’s, the landlords.

The Burn’s tolerated me even though I was always wetting my bed. I hadn’t always been a bed wetter; I started when I was 18 and ‘Dump truck’, the president of Animal House, had beaten me up on the Friday night of the Dartmouth Winter carnival, or carnivoral, as I called it. I was pissing in the gutter of the bar while ‘Truck’ was talking to the weekend’s chaperones nearby, the parents of one of our fraternity brothers. I came back to the fraternity later with a dagger I had in my room and tried to knife him. ‘Truck’ foolishly held up his hands and said “OK, go ahead.” A campus police auxiliary told me to go home, so I did. That was the first time I ever wet my bed. I continued until I was 31 and finally stopped drinking. Anyway, the Burns used to write me notes about my ‘personal habits’, I would frequently have to sleep on the box spring for days at a time while my mattress was on its side near the window drying out and finally the Burns put a plastic sheet on my bed. I assuaged the 70 year old black maid we had by giving her a huge 25 pound fresh turkey at Thanksgiving from the owner of the printing company’s farm. Anna never complained about us again. We also began to leave Anna money which Mrs. Burns didn’t like as she paid her so little. Fly left for overseas, the Army, and a girlfriend from a Catholic school nearby whom he ended up marrying. I ended up at Burn’s by myself for another almost year, drinking up a storm at the Oxford Tavern right across from the zoo, living with an older guy from Scranton, Pa who stopped going to work and finally he ended up living in Rock Creek Park. I got a girlfriend, my first, as I had never had time for such stuff before while drinking. She got pregnant 3 times in the year or so we were together. She had one abortion at 5 or 6 months and psychics frequently tell me the kid’s spirit is still around me. She never told me about this until long afterwards as I was in the Army and didn’t know. We had gone to New York City for a party and on the way home to my parent’s house in the NY suburbs she mentioned it and said the fetus had been old enough to bury. She refused to tell me the kid’s name so I told Betsy I was going to kill her and sped the car up to 100 or so and then jammed on the brakes. I had to do this 3 times before she finally told me. Peter. This was before seat belts.

I eventually had to go on active duty for 6 months in the Reserves to avoid Vietnam and some time after that got back into Dartmouth to continue my education after an exciting two years growing up in Washington, DC. I didn’t drink for about 3 months after I got back to college, went back for my senior year, didn’t graduate as expected, for a variety of excesses, a week before my parents arrived for my father’s 30th reunion - and he was the class president. I showed them. I finally did get my degree in 1993, 29 years after I was originally supposed to. I appealed to the college’s president but had to wait until all the professors in the chemistry department who remembered me had not only retired but also died! F’ em.

If you bring forth what is within you

What is within you will save you.

If you do not bring forth what is within you

What you do not bring forth will destroy you.

The Gospel of Thomas as quoted in ‘Conscious Dreaming’ by Robert Moss

‘He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” Mt 10:39

When Things Get Worse

One of the basic laws of the Unifying Principle (of feng shui - Chinese geomancy, the art of the integration of people and things in space-time) tells us that, at the extremes, everything changes to its opposite. A balloon will expand continuously until it bursts. A country's power will grow until it collapses. As we approach the end of a long cycle of change, things may get a bit worse before they begin to get better. .....A rejection notice will look better in hindsight if the next publisher accepts your poetry and wants you to sign a contract for more money. Missing a boat that sinks is a blessing, although it is hard to see that when you are stranded at the dock.

After a while, if things are clearly not improving despite your best efforts, look within.

In World War II, on a particular site in Russia, a bomb dropped by the Allies hit an orphanage, instantly ending the lives of hundreds of innocent children. Following this tragic event, the space was never 'cleared', nor did anyone perform any type of ritual in order to free the area of the presence of 'spirits' or energies trapped in this world of vibration. Years later, the government used this site to build an important structure that would provide the region with electricity. It is known as Chernobyl

Feng Shui Made Easy, William Spear, HarperCollins

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nathan Fink

Nathan Fink is a brilliant tax attorney practicing in Oradell, New Jersey. My favorite story is of one of Nate’s clients who called up saying he was selling one of his companies. Nate said, “Wait. Move to Florida for six months and establish residency, then sell the company and move back if you want. You’ll avoid several million dollars in New York State taxes.” The client moved to Boca Raton, sold the company and never moved back, managing his entire business from there ever since. I recommend Nate to anyone. (201) 967-9116

I kept quiet, mailed everything off to Nathan, my attorney, and after New Years, when the cold dreary of New York winter really sets in, called a cab one day and went off to JFK airport and on to India without telling a soul. Some weeks after I left a process server came to seek me out and was horrified to find my house apparently abandoned and broken in to. Nathan always brightened up considerably in the ensuing years telling the story of my wife’s attorney calling him up and yelling, “Nathan, do you know where your client is?” “No, he doesn’t tell me where he’s going.” “Nathan, he’s in India! I’m going to have him put in jail when he gets back!” “Oh no you’re not, I’ll have him declared incompetent first.” Nathan said that stopped her cold. Besides, she knew that he could have. Hell, I wouldn’t have resisted, I did whatever Nathan said. Carlos Ballantyne, ‘The Adventures of a Knight Errant’

Fax to Nathan, September1996

Dear Nathan,

Sorry to have gotten you involved in this pesky IRS problem I have created for myself. My real underlying concern is that the problem may have been precipitated by the last of several letters I wrote to Janet Reno and Larry Freeh, the head of the FBI demanding murder indictments on the FBI sharpshooters who killed Randy Weaver’s wife in the Ruby Ridge killing in 1992 and signed the last of my letters telling Larry to go fuck himself. The IRS began inquiring about me shortly thereafter so I am wondering that although my total income over the past 10 years has been nil that these dudes may have some agenda of putting me behind bars as I presume the laws are convoluted to do so even for my seemingly trivial case.

Other than that concern, of can and will they actually try to send me away, as you may recall that yenta, my ex-wife’s lawyer thought of, the last time I was an active client, if its just a question of money to the IRS and you really don’t want to hassle with either this case or me I don’t want to aggravate you especially when I have $3.78 in the bank and can only promise to pay you when my book becomes a best seller. I can only presume that my jawboning with these guys on my own here in Laguna Niguel at their fortress will cost me a lot more than if you managed this for me. Incidentally, if you were willing to sell it I want to repurchase that ruby you bought from me when I get some money again in my life. My Hindu astrologer in Kathmandu, Nepal who told me I could write more prolifically by wearing it around my neck recommended it to me……………….

Fax to Nathan, December 1996

Dear Nathan,

Thanks again for your work on my behalf in this pesky tax matter. Basically, I totally dropped out of society at the time of my divorce in 1981 when I had my last regular job of any sort. Since that time I have lived here and there with friends in all manner of places including a year, for example, at a Hindu temple in Spring Valley, New York in 1985 and 1986 where I paid no rent. I then lived with a girlfriend for 2 years, the ex wife of a doctor before going off to India and returning here to California in May of 1989.

Regarding 2, my non-taxable means of support since the proceeds from my small inheritance ran out in 1991;

· I have not paid rent since December of 1990 when I left for a 5 month trip to India.

· In the last 6 years I have lived with girlfriends and other friends never paying any rent. For example, I spent last winter living an unheated storage room of a friend’s house for 5 months sleeping in my sleeping bag. I have moved an average of 5 times a year during this time. In the summer of 1991 I lived in my tent in the Sierras for 3 months.

· I haven’t owned a car since 1991 when I sold an old Jeep I had purchased with inheritance funds.

· My mother sends me, via her money manager (the Fly!), about $1500 per year at birthdays and Christmas.

· I occasionally make small amounts from my photography of the Himalayas, all of which I have filed in returns in the past 2 years.

· Surprisingly to myself, I am considered eccentric even by my eccentric friends here in one of the nexii of artistic living on the west coast.

I don’t know if this provides any reasonable explanation regarding ‘non-taxable’ means of support. At the encouragement of friends I have recently completed a book about the last 20 years of my life but am as yet unable to find a publisher.

Letter to publishers

Dear Ms. Davis,

Bet on a sure thing! Four psychics have assured me my just completed autobiographical sketch of the last twenty years of my life, The Adventures of a Knight Errant, will sell well.

“You will write many books which will sell heavily.” (palmist in India)

“I see it on tables and shelves in bookstores before Christmas ’97.”

“Your book will be a best seller.”

“You are going to make money from this book.”

My 115,000 word spiritual odyssey is some combination of The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen, A Search in Secret India by Paul Brunton, Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrar and The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.

I was born in Ecuador to American parents, moved to the U.S. when I was two and settled finally in the New York suburbs. I graduated from Tninity-Pawling School and Dartmouth College with a degree in Chemistry and then worked for many years as a computer networking consultant before retiring at 39. I traveled to India 7 times for spiritual studies and trekked extensively in the Nepal Himalayas. I now mountain climb regularly in California and recently day hiked Mt. Whitney for the 4th time. An accomplished photographer, I have a unique portfolio of panoramic images of the Himalayas which sell regularly. Ballantyne’s Inspired Musings, a philosophical and spiritual newsletter of my latest ardent doings, has an enthusiastic subscriber following.

I look forward to and enclose a SASE for your speedy response and request for all or some portion of this compuscript which I wrote using Microsoft Word 7.0 on a PC. I know this book is going to sell! Thank you for your time and attention to my query.

Yours truly,

Carlos Ballantyne

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are We Fated Or Are We Free?

God, thou hast created us against our wills; free us! Paramahansa Yogananda

The world is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering. Tao Te Ching

A man is truly free, even here in this embodied state, if he knows that God is the true agent and he by himself is powerless to do anything. Sri Ramakrishna

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark. Swami Vivekananda

The awakening mind should be understood to be of two types: the mind that aspires to awaken - and the mind that ventures to do so. Shantideva

Superiority to fate

Is difficult to learn.

'T is not conferred by any,

But possible to earn

A pittance at a time,

Until, to her surprise,

The soul with strict economy

Subsists till Paradise.

Emily Dickinson

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes from a Lecture on Grief

by John Townsend, Ph.D. at Monday Night Solutions

Airport Hilton Hotel, Irvine $5, every Monday

Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs

People who are face to face with God are people who have deeply grieved

‘For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.’ Ecc 1:18

Reality brings grief. Grief redeems the losses in out lives. Sorrow is the emotional state that goes with grief. Grief is harder if the person grieved is alive.

Grief is letting go of what you cannot keep in order to get what you cannot lose.

Grieving people are learning people. People who cannot grieve stay stuck in their cycles. Grief is saying yes to reality.

Stages of grief

1. Ambivalence - feel the sadness and the love at the same time. Value the lost person. Don’t split, feel the love and caring. Set boundaries. Good people leave good people. The more we devalue the person grieved the more we are stuck with them.

2. Loss of character loss of love loss of freedom - Let go of the fact that you can impress me.

3. Catastrophic or traumatic - Split off and forgotten. Controversial healing modalities.

4. Existential grief - sadness of the world

A lot of depression is unfelt loss

Problems in grieving

1. Forgiveness - we hold someone else to blame and don’t fully grieve

2. Emotional isolation - don’t isolate, let people in first, then grieve. Mercy is given to the merciful.

3. Defensive hope - this will put your life on hold, lot of omnipotent control here as we hope the situation or person will return. Control what you can control; grieve what you cannot. (other people, other people, other people) Defensive hope blocks comfort which maintains grief.

If you need something from someone who can’t give it to you, you are in spiritual bondage.

Stop trying to let other people see you as good.

If you don’t have a lot of love inside you;

· find people who can love you

· people without love become hyper-independent

· experience gratitude

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Restaurant and Market Notes

all in Orange County, California

1. Fresca’s - Lake Forest Road at the corner of Muirlands. Great Mexican food, clean, inexpensive, great salsa bar, no lard, very pleasant help, the best chili rellanos anywhere.

2. India Sweets and Spices - on the west side of Rockfield Road between El Toro and Lake Forest Roads in the shopping center next to the big Salvation Army store. Spicy Indian food just like the streets of New Delhi. Lunch specials $2.98. Ask for help ordering. All Hindu vegetarian. Try masala dosas, the hot dogs of India. I also noticed an interesting Peruvian restaurant next door to the Indian place and only looked at the menu, mostly fish and rice.

3. A & J Restaurant - Arbor Shopping center, NW corner of Jeffrey and Walnut in Irvine. Authentic mountain Chinese food. I almost never see other Caucasians in here. Lots of vegetarian items. My favorite place. Puck Wolfgang Puck’s, I’ll take steamed vegetarian dumplings, homemade noodles like Marco Polo brought back to Italy with hot sesame sauce, pan fried buns, garlic and spiced seaweed with bean sprouts, spicy cucumber, etc. etc. etc..

4. 99 Ranch Market - The last time I was at A & J a customer told me about 99 Ranch Market, a Chinese supermarket at the corner of Culver and Irvine Center Drive. No more packing up the AK47 and driving to Little Saigon in Garden Grove for oriental groceries. The least expensive seaweed and tofu I’ve ever found. Great kid watching.

5. Afghan Market - Raymond Way off El Toro Road just east of Rockfield in the little shopping center on the mountain or east side, next to a large consignment shop. A 10 foot wide cacophony of spices, carpets, videos, fresh meat, Afghan bread and of course bags of Basmati rice. Probably the least expensive spices in Orange County. Lovely carpets. Remember these are the people who kicked the Russian’s butts helped greatly by U.S. made Stinger hand held surface-to-air missiles the CIA smuggled into the country.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Snippets

from on-line “He’s a duel personality.”

from on-line;

S: we must all except each other as we are

S: I do except myself

S: I am very happy with myself

BIM11: You ought to pack up and get your but down here

‘If people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.’ Yogi Berra

“I used to get all dolled up to go out thinking I had platinum ovaries.”

“When I would show up at her door in the morning she could always tell what I had been doing the night before depending on whether the sand was stuck to the toes of my shoes or the back of the heels. She’d ask me if I wanted a screwdriver or a bloody Mary.”

“I do not like so much the blah, blah, blah.” Monique from France

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another Update on Good Health

I ran into a nutritionist at a health food store and had a long chat about a few of my favorite supplements.

· MCT by Twin Labs – medium chain triglycerides in a water soluble form, non-carbohydrate fuel for aerobic (vs. anaerobic, or sugar burning) performance. She told me this stuff is EXCELLENT and is now given to premature infants as it is so easily digested.

· Coenzyme Q10 – She says it is in and used by every cell in the body to produce energy and suggested that more IS better and that I try going from 30 milligrams a day to 100, if I could afford it. She has had excellent results with her clients including a cured irregular heartbeat.

· Vitamin E – She suggested I should be taking as much as 800 units a day due to the pollution we live in. I currently don’t take any Vit E.

· Water – The nutritionist does not believe in distilled water and thinks it strips the minerals out of our bodies.

· Stevia – She recommended stevia as a sugar substitute noting it is used in Europe in Coca-Cola and restricted here by the FDA to use only as a supplement. The nutritionist said information about stevia is available on the Internet.

The nutritionist is a great advocate of individual differences and thinks, for example, that some people need to eat meat and shouldn’t attempt to be vegetarian. She is against blanket treatment given to all patients due to these individual differences, such as treating all cancer patients with raw vegetable juice regimens. The nutritionist is an advocate of the oriental system of classifying people into different dispositional types. I noted that the nutritionist appeared to be about 60 years old, had many liver spots on her hands, an indication, I think, of lack of oxygen getting into the system, and she appeared to me to be about 40 lb. overweight. What do I know? Maybe she’s actually 85 and doing great. She had great skin, complexion, disposition and energy. She said she was unable to take on new clients due to her current workload and that she consulted for a supplement manufacturer and traveled to Japan and China.

My Maxim

I have had for some years a theory I call my maxim which is -- We humans all do in the world the thing we can’t do for ourselves. I know it is true because if carried to the limit, which is getting to a state where there is nothing we can’t do for ourselves, we don’t need to be here any more. We are complete. I came upon this maxim listening to a fireman speak about going into burning buildings and having them collapse on him and I had a flash picture of it really representing his inner process. I turned to the woman sitting next to me at the fireman’s talk and asked her what work she did. She said she was a waitress. I asked her if she was able to serve herself and she got very upset, on the verge of tears. From what I’ve seen almost all body workers desperately need nurturing. The age of death of the average American doctor is something like 58, I believe. I have tried to do as little as possible in life so that no one can get a handle on my incompletions. It is much easier to see other people’s stuff than our own. Who wants to look within?

‘The life which is not examined is not worth living.’ Plato

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Goddess

It is a difficult thing, Goddess, for a mortal man to know you at sight, even a man of experience; you turn yourself into all sorts of shapes. Odysseus to Athena in Homer’s Odyssey

I first saw her a few days after I returned from five months in India and Bali and was still going around telling people I was God. Someone a while ago said of her at that time that she looked like an angel. She had shoulder length red hair and moved, almost flowed, like a sylph. When she left the living room I asked who she was and was told she was living with someone.

I left her because of the madness. “Madness …. most certainly can, and often does, kill love through its mistrustfulness, unrelenting pessimism, discontents, erratic behavior, and, especially, through its erratic moods.” An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison

manic depression is characterized by “excessive involvement in pleasurable activities.” “full inter-episodal recoveries” Diagnostic and Statistical manual DSM IV, from An Unquiet Mind. Sounds sort of like me in that brackish time between adventures. Jamison described diffidently going to the head of her department at Johns Hopkins Medical School to reveal her treated manic depressive condition and he said, “My God, Kay. I know you are manic depressive. If we got rid of all the manic depressives on the faculty here we’d have a much smaller school and, I would say, a much more boring one.” I really like that one though. Imagine! “So how are you?” “Oh, I’m having a full inter-episodal recovery, thank you.”

Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson

I felt a cleaving in my mind

As if my brain had split;

I tried to match it, seam by seam,

But could not make them fit.

The thought behind I strove to join

Unto the thought before,

But sequence raveled out of reach

Like balls upon a floor.



Much madness is divinest sense

To a discerning eye;

Much sense the starkest madness.

'Tis the majority

In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;

Demur, - you're straightway dangerous,

And handled with a chain.

‘While all human personality is probably, at bottom, in a kind of chaos, and only compelled into coherence by the necessity to act in the outer world, it has been the tradition of biography, in all its forms to impose a, more or less, Newtonian pattern of linear intelligibility on this turmoil of an individual’s nature.’ Jesse, the biography of Jesse Jackson by Marshall Frady

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Packing for the Himalayas

or, F… all these white people and flatlanders. I’m outta here.

large backpack[1]

carry on bag[2]

day pack[3]

duffel bag[4]

sleeping bag[5]

Lowe compressor bag for the sleeping bag[6]

3 or 4 lightweight breathable underwear tops[7]

long pants[8]

long underwear bottoms

nylon sport shorts[9]

shirts with large buttoned pockets[10]

lightweight jacket with zippered inner pocket[11]

windbreaker shell, water repellent

Speedo racing bathing suit[12]

a roll of Bounty paper towels[13]

freezer bags[14]

dental floss

toothpicks

toothbrush and paste

sunscreen

moisturizer

lip gloss with sunscreen

8 oz concentrated laundry detergent[15]

6 oz Dr. Bronners concentrated liquid soap[16]

water purification pump and filter[17]

2 - liter or liter and a half water bottles[18]

bottle of iodine tablets for water purification

comfortable pair of lightweight hiking boots[19]

shower shoes[20]

sandals for walking around[21]

wash cloth

towel

6 or 8 clothes pins

balaclava[22]

6 pair light weight socks[23]

2 or 3 pair hiking socks

small flashlight[24]

camera and film[25]

sun hat[26]

sun glasses

Lexan tablespoon[27]

gloves

down vest

Random thoughts

Ultra Fuel powdered high performance drink

AA batteries

Shoe Goo shoe repair glue

American cigarettes to sell

waist pack[28]

I usually carry half my stash in cash, $100 bills and the other half in American Express travelers checks. I’m having thoughts of carrying Swiss francs or Deutchmarks instead of the US dollars. Why? I don’t like play money!

Credit cards work everywhere

When I pack I put my backpack and carryon on one side of the room and everything I want to take on the other and throw things in priority order toward the luggage, periodically going over and packing it. When the luggage is full, that’s it.

Most everything else you could ever want, and lots you wouldn’t but might purchase anyway is available ‘over there’. Bring few clothes. For me, one pair of long pants, a couple of shirts, and lots of tee shirts and long underwear tops is best. Lots of great clothes to buy or have made overseas.

Best outfitters;

New York - Tents and Trails, Park Row downtown Manhattan

New Jersey - Campmor, Paramus, NJ and mail order 800-525-4784

California - Adventure 16, Sport Chalet



[1] Unless you can be sure you will never have to carry your own bag make sure you get a nice large comfortable pack.

[2] I use a medium size rock climber’s backpack for carryon. I once had 34 lb. in this bag leaving the Himalayas in a Twin Otter as I wasn’t about to put $5000 of cameras in my checked luggage.

[3] Take it empty with you. Useful for knocking around. You’ll need to carry at least your own water bottle with you where ever you go.

[4] Good to take a duffel empty in your luggage to bring stuff back in or to ship it back from ‘over there’. Remember the object is to get to where there is no here or there anywhere.

[5] I have a Western Mountaineering ultra light bag I paid $250 for that I have LIVED in for months and months at a time. The finest down bags made in the US. WM rebuilt my entire bag for me for free when it was ten years old and I ripped it in the washing machine and down went everywhere! In San Jose 408-287-8944 Bargains on seconds. Consider a sleeping bag liner.

[6] Takes a sleeping bag down to the size of a grapefruit

[7] The secret to packing light is to layer. This first layer is crucial. This is the layer I sleep in and change every few days or so when away from clean clothes for 2 weeks. I use Patagonia lightweight Capilene tee shirts; warm, breathable and they dry quickly.

[8] Consider REAL outdoor pants that you can remove without having to take your boots off first. Why? Guess!

[9] THE cachet outfit of the American Everest climbers until they actually head up the glaciers is Patagonia long underwear bottoms and Patagonia Baggies™ shorts over them. Too Cool!

[10] I love to have shirts made up or modified with a sun glass pocket on the sleeves

[11] For passport and money carried as unobtrusively as possible. For me a layer I wear every day and layer under and over.

[12] No its not for swimming, it’s for when you get diarrhea. You line the suit with Bounty paper towel so you don’t dirty all your clean underwear in one night and the nylon suit cleans readily.

[13] I separate each sheet, fold it into thirds, then thirds again, pack the squares into freezer bags

[14] Pack almost everything in freezer bags, the heavy duty 2.7 mil ones. My luggage upon departure is bags of freezer bags of ‘stuff’.

[15] A capful is enough to hand wash two weeks of dirty clothes by hand in the shower in Kathmandu or in the cold stream running through to middle of Namche Bazaar

[16] 2 drops for each armpit, 2 more for your face and you’re DONE

[17] Don’t drink ANY water overseas you haven’t purified yourself. First Need filters are OK and the least expensive. Don’t use Katadyn. Too $$ and too slow.

[18] Tanya had an aluminum canteen she would fill with hot water at night and put into her sleeping bag an hour before bed

[19] I have used HiTec Sierra Lites, 1 size over with 2 pair of socks

[20] You aren’t going barefoot in there are you?

[21] I’ve worn Birkenstocks for miles, the new sport sandals are good

[22] A face mask is nice to have if it gets really cold. Mostly I’ve worn mine in my sleeping bag at night.

[23] Lately I use Coolmax socks, ankle high. I even sleep in them. Pull the hiking socks on over them. You only have to wash the liners then, never the hiking socks

[24] Useful for getting to the bathroom at night. I have a little one I leave around my neck at night while sleeping.

[25] Many opinions here. I always shoot slides, throw most away keeping only the very best. Fuji Provia or Sensia is probably best. Buy mail order from B&H Photo in NY (800-221-5662) with Kodak processing included. Half the price of any other method. Take more film than you think you’ll ever shoot.

[26] Anything from a baseball type to a cowboy hat depending on sun sensitivity

[27] “You’re going to eat with THAT?”, I like to carry my own

[28] I don’t like these as I never want to expose my valuables like this

No comments: