tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54034305447866353242024-03-08T06:00:40.584-06:00Sin Loud Speak EasyMark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-90406483189239901802011-05-30T00:40:00.000-05:002011-05-30T00:40:31.871-05:00RAPTURE APPROACHESAnd the roaches flood the streets. Bayou breeze hangs heavy with stink and swamp and God and heat. It's the end of the world and life goes on in muggy, buggy Louisiana. The golden green marsh glows purple as ever while sweet poor girls with sweet poor accents grant hellos and how ya'lls and who dats. Cicadas still fly and cars drive on by while the evangelists feast off fears with their judgement day banners crossing the sky. I've walked past billboards and lunatics and apathy for months, from the coast to the west to the texan sun. Everywhere I go they're shouting for the end, praying for death, longing for their bible to be right, but its all in their head. If only this all mighty wrath they preach would just swoop down and take them instead. <br />
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The witching hour passed twelve ago with twelve more to go until the world explodes in fundamental glow and I think we are ending every second, beginning the next, apocalypse after apocalypse from gritty swamps to metropolis. I think the world did end today and yesterday and tomorrow, and for some small towns the spillways minor diversion brings slow filling sorrow. Just like that, a millennium in a flash, gone are the homes in Butte la Rose in stinking swamp ash. Sometimes thats just how it goes, there's always a catch. The wildlife scatters for cover with twenty foot snakes that patter on over, hidden in dense reserves. How little we know, how much we have heard. There's police in streams and military hummers blasting at dollar stores while the news keeps flood flashing, feeding us more and more and more. What a sad story that devastation sells from station to station, across our great nation we tune in for ruin, addicted to the suffering of those around. As hard as it is to watch this all go down, the generosity of spirit in the dirty south is ever humble, welcoming and profound. <br />
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I close my eyes and climb through the darkness inside, I search the universe right within my lids and find stars and planets and love. I open them up, I breathe them in. I breathe in the southern air, taste the gulf in my sinus while wildlife banters everywhere. The animals don't seem very scared. It's dirty down here but not one soul I've met has that fear, the oncoming imminent end pressing against their gut. Most don't have much, but, they share their manners and smiles and such. Truck stop diners with food out of this world, its greasy and gritty and served by the sweetest bayou girls. They call me sugar, honey, baby and love and bring more forks or hot sauce or whatever I can think of. The homeless on the streets of Baton Rouge, thats Red Stick to you, say hello and how do you do. <br />
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After almost four months on the road I'm discovering the most beautiful part of people is their crazy, and when you can find your own, find an others, the universe opens up into waves of knowing. I step outside and I don't know what's next, I watch people fall and starve and beat themselves perplexed. I don't know the color of the car around the bend or if today is the beginning, the middle or the end. But I know who I love and how and where, I've seen them before we ever even got there. I Take time as a loop and death the inside and we're all whizzing patterns across space and time. If this is the end then it's already done, evil triumphed and the good guys won. The earth shattered and the universe stopped, tides crashing wound back the clocks. There were guns and bombs and frogs and fires, brimstone burning with hateful desire. Horsemen and Jesus and anti gravity space fights with swords of great beaming light. It was an epic clash of biblical fate with every religions future on the plate. It happened, we evaporated and all was lost, souls sold to devils to pay their cost. Then the universe colided and light arose, connecting each galaxy with gaseous glows. Water and fire and earth erupt and life swarmed inward outward and up! <br />
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Or not. Or the world is as it was, as it has always been, constant, churning, alive and much much older than you or I....<br />
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It's a short trek from the texas border and what a difference a new climate makes as it wet bakes my skin and shakes me from sleep again and again. But that uneasy shake is gone in me and who's to say this is life or death or heaven or hell, this earth we roam the only reality? Words are words and we label to box, pack em tight in our brain, work our jobs and pretend were sane. But we are human and sanity is a contradiction. Business the reality. <br />
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Day after rapture and all is still, heavy, the same. Casual ongoings of this ridiculous race remains. I'm walking in to New Orleans past the airport on skyline highway with jumbo jets screaming over my head deafening the oncoming traffic coming my way. I'm thinking of all the times I've landed here before, escaping without a thought. I'm thinking I can't wait to get to Bourbon Street, get a Hand Grenade from Tropical Isle and head over to The Funky Pirate to hear Big Al Carson sing. Im thinking I should stop thinking, keep walking and get here safe before I get ahead of myself...I've always suspected I would be in New Orleans for the end of the world and I couldn't think of a better place to vacation the post apocalypse. Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-23887847470245782762011-05-10T13:46:00.000-05:002011-05-10T13:46:08.157-05:00POSTCARDDear America.<br />
<br />
Mark here...<br />
<br />
I would like to break the fourth wall for a bit in this post and write with my real people voice and not my author's voice as a brief change. I will explain why in a bit. But first: <br />
<br />
Hello New York, I'm sorry your weather has been so erattic this past winter but I have a feeling that first day of incredible weather, the one that the entire city can feel and know is here to stay, is coming soon. So get your frisbees and Margarita mix ready for sheeps meadow. Its May! Please know I miss you (and by you I mean all of my friends, loved ones, contemporaries and D.J. Reynolds Pub) dearly and I cannot wait to walk on through in July. I am who I am because I became a man in your city. And Boy oh boy do we have a whopper in the mix for that week in July so get ready.<br />
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Hi Rochester. I'm sorry your weather is the same as its ever been, frigid. Actually I'm not sorry, your on Lake Ontario and that is what you get for living in the near tundra. But its a beautiful city and raised me well, kept me safe, and at least spring will be short and summer will be here before you know it. Please know I do not miss you, but I sure will be happy to return.<br />
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Hello Family. Hi Mom...(I promise I actually know half of the people following me here so don't go calling 911 just yet). How's the house? How's the Labyrinth? Hi Matt, I can't believe you are coming out to Cali, I am so excited and you should be too. Hi Jenn, thank you for the phone, I would be lost without it. literally, its got this awesome maps function and does all of this crazy stuff.<br />
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Hello L.A. I had a brief affair with you before we left but I am really looking forward to my eventual relationship with you there come fall. The 79 degree temperature when I landed in January 17th was enough to make me propose to you on the spot.<br />
<br />
So...<br />
<br />
I am writing you from the R.V. parked on the side of the road somewhere near Sweetwater, (When I began this letter, I am now in muggy Houston) Texas and I couldn't be happier believe it or not. If you haven't caught on yet, this blog isn't so much a blog or journal as it is a public workshop for my writings from the road that I hope to publish in the coming year. Thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to read and even kinder to share their response. I truly appreciate it and believe it or not, this is really the first time I have ever shared my writing in the public eye. Thank you.<br />
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What has been posted to date may be considered condensed chapters from our journey, written in a specific voice to convey the more existential undertones of what I am going through as we sift our way through America one step at a time. I try to write with the upmost respect to those described, often disguising identities and avoiding days and details I do not deem readable for the public interest do to its lack of. Some days just plain stink...<br />
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I also try to write as empathetically as possible with an ease of voice that is telling you a story, not teaching you a lesson. I by no means consider myself a scholar as I do not believe in spelling and agree with Mr. Vonnegut on the use of Semi-Colons. I believe he calls them Hermaphrididic Transvestites that only prove you went to college. But thankfully A.J. is a brilliant english tacticion and is always so helpful in pointing out that I can't spell. Most of the time, I am just trying to put a little poetry in to my other wise clouded thought process.<br />
<br />
But there hasn't been much poetry in Texas for me and I have been struggling to catch that voice whizzing around in my head with my hand quick enough to write it all down. But it hasn't been working to well. There is usually a lightbulb and the process begins and I methodically begin writing in my head as I walk so I know exactly what will go down on that piece of paper, or I guess now, screen. I think it has been so tough lately because that voice is at ease. I believe some call it block...<br />
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It is difficult to poetically describe forty seven mile an hour winds bullying you into the middle of some desolate road between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Lubbock Texas for eight days straight. It is difficult to explain why screaming at the sky to stop pushing me around became common practice. If I did it would have to be some form of 1850's Irish battle cry and that is just silly. "Blowing winds! Blow to the roads! Blow me to the left and Blow me on home!". Come on...<br />
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It is difficult to poetically muse the gas station parking lots we have had to stay in more than we would like or the nachos we call dinner or the six day stretches without showering. Thank God, and Wal-Mart, for durable and sensitive baby wipes. They have been our best friend this entire trip.<br />
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It is equally difficult to poetically describe what turned out to be one of the most amazing, inspiring, and welcoming weeks of our entire journey, Lubbock Texas. I say this because I feel the people there who supported us deserve more than my clever take on the world, they deserve my most sincere thank you. <br />
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THANK YOU LUBBOCK!!!!<br />
<br />
We arrived tired and haggared from the most difficult stretch of our trip. A few hundred miles, only a few showers, only a few crew members. A woman named Tonja, Hi Tonja, and Bonnie Ann, Hi Bonnie Ann, met us with open arms in the industrial district of Old Downtown Lubbock, much like we were welcomed at the Zuni Mountain Sanctuary. Bonnie Ann put us up in her beautiful home for the week and really became our Lubbock Mom while Tonja, who helps run The LHCUA center, turned out to be our fun Lubbock Aunt. It was amazing.<br />
<br />
We immediately received a tour of the complex which is beautiful! I have never in my time in New York or anywhere seen an arts complex as nice as the LHCUA center, complete with a building dedicated to pottery, a state of the art Gallery, a state of the art Black Box theatre (I am going back to do a play there I promise) and even a state of the art Graffitti museum, not to mention several others. They took all of these old auto shops and factories in an otherwise torn down part of town and turned them into an incredible facility for artists of all shapes and sizes and are working on building more residencies. If you have the chance, visit.<br />
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After the tour we were aptly presented with six Dominos pizzas (Tonjas partner owns a Dominos, of course) and a fresh keg of Blue Moon in the old gas station now new gallery run by an incredible man named Charles. You know, they just keep a keg-o-rator available for the resident artists. We were told that there would be quite a few people attending later that night for our event. What the event was? We had no clue, but we figured it out fast and soon enough A.J. and I were sitting with a micraphone in front of an audience of seventy five people telling them about our trip and what we were doing.<br />
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They stared in awe with wide smiles and open hearts. Many of the audience was gay or bi or supportive or wanted to be but Lubbock is one of the most conservative dens you will ever enter. I would have never known. The floor was soon opened up and a town hall type discussion ensued, Blue Moons in hand as it always should be, and I soon realized that most of these people have never had the chance to speak before. Most of these people had no voice, and they looked to us to be that for them. Most of these people have never been in a room with someone who they can relate to or have their support. Certainly not a room full of seventy five people. But here we all were. I heard from many people later they were planning on dropping in quick and leaving but after hear A.J., Myself and the rest of the room talk, stayed to the end and on to karaoke later that night at Buffalo Wild Wings. Yes, thats right. And it would not be our last Karaoke session in Lubbock.<br />
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After the forum, we stayed for at least two hours meeting the people, taking photos and giving my number to anyone who asked. There would be many dates and meal invites nailing my text messaging box the next morning. My apologies to anyone I missed, but we did shit down Buffalo Wild wings the night before. Video footage to come... <br />
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Boy were we fed. It is true, that's how they do in Texas. There was an incredible feast of home made guacamole and burritos at Kristi and Michelle's house, a tasty tex-mex at Miguel's (Thank you Buddy), An insanely delicious burger binge at Belly's cafe, on the house (Thank you Belly's), more burgers at Buns over texas (Thank you Bonnie Ann) and some of the best home cooking I have ever had interspersed between (Thank you bonnie ann and Buddy). My mouth is watering over the keys right now...<br />
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There was a poetry reading, karaoke, a Movie day for Jack (His Dream) and most important, rest...<br />
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One of the hardest parts of this journey is making these connections knowing we must keep walking on. Since lubbock we have trekked Texas, rocked Austin, been taken in by another incredible family in Brenham with an all inclusive Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory tour and a German Maifest and have found ourselves taken in yet again here in Houston. All I can say is wow, and thank you.<br />
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So to my Family, friends and loved ones, to anyone I haven't had the chance to talk to on the road, hello. We are doing great. It is the journey of a life time and I couldn't be happier finding out who America is and Who I am at the same time. I have a pretty good idea now but the best is yet to come. We are halfway across the country, on foot, and it has been nothing but beautiful.<br />
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I will be back to my writing soon. Texas has been beautiful, unexpected and a lot to process. But it is coming. Thank you all again.<br />
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Here's to the Road,<br />
<br />
MarkMark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-59153301555246366452011-04-05T01:52:00.000-05:002011-04-05T10:11:21.207-05:00REACH OUT AND TOUCH FAITHIt's been a long way to Santa Fe. I'm legs up on a motel bed that immediately broke underneath my exhausted collapsing body last night at Garretts Desert Inn. Not the first thing my ego wanted to encounter after walking every day for two months but the new found curve provides an incredible temperpedic sleeping experience and I am in heaven. Based on some of the four hundred pound tourist folk I saw in the parking lot earlier, I'm guessing that America broke my bed before I ever laid down on it.<br />
<br />
Turns out Santa Fe is the Harvard of New Mexico! It's filled with small walkable streets, old chapels, fancy cafes, and antique shop after antique shop after native jewelry store after antique shop. It's got little parks and museums and chapels with crazy wind chimes and....shops! I can see why I've heard so many lovely things, we all agree our Mother's would just love it here. I'm pretty sure the city officially closes at 9pm and we are here on a weekend. It took of all of two days to walk to ole Santa Fe from ole Albuquerque where we met some incredibly nice friends and lost a crew member permanently. That's the way things go.<br />
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Santa Fe also looks exactly like Albuquerque walking in, a vast city laid out in front of shadowed mountains as you walk over and down a long ridge to enter. So much land, so many buildings, so few inhabitants, so many tourists. Considering I passed a sign that read Las Vegas 90 Miles on the way I all but thought I had entered the Twilight Zone. Jack reassured me there is a Las Vegas New Mexico, I still don't believe it, and we were indeed heading to Santa Fe. So here we are, maybe. It is relaxing and it is beautiful and historic and quiet and exactly what we need right now. I am infinitely happy to have made it here alive and be able to shower in a not so public restroom for once. A.J. is at the desk hammering through some pretty extensive mix cd's he's making for Phoenix, the shaman we met at the Zuni Mountain Sanctuary two weeks ago. I've gone through a lot since leaving Arizona. Let me take you back...<br />
<br />
Look to see<br />
Listen to hear<br />
Breathe to smell<br />
Feel to Touch<br />
Savor to taste<br />
<br />
These are the last words Phoenix will be speaking to me for now. The storm is setting down over the northern New Mexico mountains, aptly blowing his long, scraggly brown hair in the wind as he leaves me with this philosophy. He stares me in the eye and with a low, calm voice, one in which he has only been speaking in for the past two minutes that transcends ego or personality, he says, "You've seen these things. You know it's true. Good Bye Mark". He turns sharply and walks back to the Juniper house where the others are celebrating this gloomy, chilling Monday.<br />
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I know exactly what he is talking about but not really because I am repeating in my head,<br />
<br />
Look to see<br />
Listen to hear<br />
Breathe to smell<br />
Feel to Touch<br />
Savor to taste<br />
<br />
Experience the intangible to describe the relatable? Faith and reason at the same time...Knowing from experience. And this is a major point that came up in not so many ways here at the Zuni Mountain Sanctuary. It is home and commune to a group of primarily homosexual artists known as the Radical Faeries. They have many locations in the wild like this spread throughout the U.S. and they find their way here from big cities and small, good lives and bad, sickness and health. They're everywhere. Beware! The Faeries at Zuni are self sufficient and self serving, they live off of the land and for each other in tempered harmony with their surroundings. I think the government would refer to these people here as evil socialists. I even got to grab eggs from underneath a chicken in their coop, all fresh and warm and gooey. They were pink and brown and yellow and blue and Easter suddenly made a little bit more sense now. We made a quiche with them the next morning.<br />
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As the door slams in the wind behind Phoenix, I look to the sky and see the last remnants of sunlight fading. I look back to the house where the party is starting, Faeries dancing and drinking and singing, and I see the last remnants of sobriety fading. The clouds roll heavily overhead and thunder trickles miles off. I've learned my lesson from being stuck in the dirt and I will not see us stranded seven miles from the road for a week because the pastures are too muddy to drive the R.V. on tomorrow and I have a radio interview in the morning. If there is one thing I have learned this weekend, it is to listen to that little voice. It's usually right. And even though this is our last night here, my voice is saying "GO NOW"<br />
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So I bolt to the R.V. and quickly alert Jack of the oncoming NorWester, grab some of A.J.s clothes, run up to the common house and leave them on the kitchen table with a goofy note. I can't find A.J. anywhere and it is zero hour. So I leave him what he needs for the night and make the executive decision to high tail the falcon down this mountain and leave A.J. to the Faeries. After all, he is one of them now. <br />
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I rush back to the R.V, and hit it. I'm dodging, weaving, breaking, flooring it through narrow tree ways and dirt roads down to a pasture and cows and it's almost pitch black. The high beams do what they can and staggering wind gusts are pushing us from the east. I feel like a real storm chaser. Jack's sitting shotgun a little nervous but I'm just looking to the stars, willing us ahead and getting us the heck out of here before the rain. We stop to take a picture of the last crack of daylight caving in ten miles back past the storm and the sanctuary. After two gates, three cattle guards, one gravel road, one dirt road, and seven miles we made it out and head to the closest gas station. Now let's hope we can find A.J. tomorrow morning with no phone reception. Let me take you back...<br />
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I'm driving the R.V. Seven miles from the road, on to one dirt road, a gravel road, through three cattle guards and two gates, weaving through cows and mud and collecting several tree branches on the roof before arriving at the base of Zuni Mountain Sanctuary. Thank the lord. It's a Saturday dusk after walking thirty six miles, but we are recharged from our triumphant exit from Arizona and happy to have the next two days off.<br />
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The past two weeks have been wearing, losing a crew member, staying in abandon gas stations, sketchy reservation truck stops, ghost towns with midnight tribal parades, dealing with stray dog packs and a St. Patricks day spent quietly over a few beers and a cards in the R.V. I did receive a noisy phone call from my friends at D.J. Reynolds, the best pub in New York, where I am known to celebrate my Irish most nights of the week. Or I guess I was known now...I think this was the first time I missed the city, that feeling again of missing what could be the greatest night in the world.<br />
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I drive up another ridge and we finally arrive at the end of the 'driveway' of the Zuni Mountain Sanctuary where a few cars are parked. We of course park next to a big white school bus painted with all sorts of quotes and patterns and flowers and the word "Zunique" in bold sparkly letters on the front matching the bold sparkly everything else. I think I found where Jesus Christ Superstar lives now...<br />
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A.J. and I walk another mile up a mud path and finally see huts and smoke burning from fireplaces silhouetted against a fading, royal, star ridden New Mexico sky. A man is walking towards us from the distance with his arms outstretched and long blonde hair draped over loosely worn flannel to his shoulders. He maintains this open posture for three minutes as we approach each other. He hugs us without question and says, "Welcome Home". He looks like Jesus. His name is Christian. <br />
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After showing us the land Christian introduces us to the rest of the Faeries in the common house where dinner is prepared. There's Tiny Bear who is short and shy and almost always shirtless and sitting in a corner somewhere. Nomi, who is robust and sweet and would be in the movie Braveheart if he wasn't a geologist by day and drag queen by night, also a fantastic cook. There's Amber who is the only one who identifies as female and wears dirty wrangler jeans and an oil soaked plain womens tank top, all the while spitting and swearing, nails crusted with motorcycle grease and the most masculine gritty faerie there could be with every inch of her screaming high school football coach, except for the whole wearing a dress thing. She's a sweetheart. <br />
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Of course there is Phoenix, the exuberant yes man who loves and lives in every moment and moment after that, a master of tarot and FaeFu, that's Faerie Kung Fu. It's a lot of fun I can assure you. If I didn't know better by the way Phoenix dressed, I would guess he's a rockstar, wearing pants sewn from an American Flag, a fired red tank top, layers of jewelry with the persona and room presence to match. I really thought he was just going to start singing when we met. As it is, he has no possessions and lives at the commune, a shaman and soon to be friend. Monk is a genuinely sweet soul, he likes to D.J. and wear skirts and bonnets and live a life of solitude and prayer, like a monk. Later in the weekend, I speak at length to him in the Tea House, where he lives, about my issues with technology and society, generation gaps and the government. I talk about the stuff I can't always put in to words yet and rarely bring up. He understood. And then Randy. Randy's dream is to combine solar power and other high tech green engineering techniques to living communities that would function off the land much like the caveman did, while using modern ingenuity to be cleaner and more efficient. I believe the government would call this an axis of terror. He is also a healer, a great big bear of a man and may have been in the movie Braveheart. <br />
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This community, these men, they are a lot to take in at first, but considering they are taking us in, I just say yes and try to see who they really are. I say yes to their way of life, to the one land line and computer, to the eco friendly man made outhouse, to the group meals and wacky outfits. I lived in New York, gays and capes and arts and spirits are no stranger to my everyday commute and psyche. Besides, it is the super moon tonight and the first day of spring and the world is shifting and the camp is actually on a continental divide. I'm in this amazing place, a piece of indescribable landscape and have the ability to live in brief sanctuary from the outside world. Welcome Home. <br />
<br />
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It's Sunday night, there's now fifteen people on the land including us. There is some sort of Faerie summit secret council committee meeting going on and I meet a whole new heard of utterly unique men throughout the day and got to know the ones living there a little better. The bonfire was uneventful and epic all at once. People came and went as they pleased, I stayed most of the time. It wasn't the party expected and the fire was way too big at first but when its roar eased and gently danced in the night and the flickering tips clashed in the moonlit sky, I came to a nice peace with the earth. It made me want to howl, so I did. Spring is here.<br />
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After a good nights sleep and an afternoon of lounging, I'm helping prepare a massive feast with and for the Faeries. Phoenix is whipping up the craziest batch of mashed potatoes I've ever seen, A.J. Is pretending to know how to chop garlic across from me and I'm adding more fresh vegetables to my Tomato Made Up Soup. Nomi made a garlic bread loaf that is almost gone thanks to those of us cooking and snacking for the past two hours and I snag another as I rush outside to check on the pork chops and sirloins I'm grilling. God do I love grilling.<br />
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Out of the giant front windows of Common House, the super moon rises for a second night, sucking out star viewing with its vast moonlight. The table is set, hands are held, announcements made, we thank and we pray, and then we chow down. That's how it's done. I counted how many people were actually sitting at the big wooden table eating and some scattered throughout the room. It's thirteen. Seriously. I'm looking around the room to find Da Vinci and see how the painting is going and I think this may very well be the last supper. I'm just praying someone bursts into song. But there is only love tonight, and after gullets were stuffed, a relaxing viewing of the movie 'Clue' on VHS two houses over in the T.V. room ensues. What happened to good physical comedy?<br />
<br />
After the movie I wind up back in Common House sneaking a midnight snack which turns into playing cards into the wee hours with Phoenix and A.J. and that turns into the I-Ching and a tarot reading and my philosophy on 'What Does The Bear Do' and paper airplanes and talk and deep talk and telepathy games and funny stories and a riveting Fae Fu battle and more talk and I'm just happy to feel like I'm at a place that I can get all of this off my chest. Its like acting school with no rules and we are all the teacher. The whole time I have that voice, that judge trained in my head during these talks that says I'm crazy and so is anyone pretending to understand, that says I'm silly for thanking the moon and manifesting safety ahead. But before us, long before machines, civilizations talked this way. <br />
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Civilizations designed this way. They wrote epic poems and prayed to different Gods for every different blessing they received, even for something like rain. I usually buy an umbrella when it rains. Ive never lived where it doesn't. The egyptians designed their pyramids' geographical relationship to each other in exact architectural correlation with the constellation Orion. Why? They would tell you if they could but you'd never believe them. Now in America we put a starbucks in correlation to the highest traffic flow of a targeted demographic. Don't get me wrong, I like their Carmel thingys. <br />
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I just don't think we are very different than the history we haven't learned from. The times we misconstrue and forget or glorify and repeat. Jesus had big fun meals with his friends too, one of them just happened to be labeled the last. I'll tell you later how many gospels there actually are. Here at the sanctuary I see these people, I see the labels society would slap, must have slapped. I see the struggle. But I also listened to what they were saying, I heard the lessons shared in a voice older than myself or culture or society. I saw how they lived. I meditated on questions as old as time. I imagined other lives. I think of the world that I was taught and the world I am actually learning and I don't know what to think.<br />
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I guess this is the struggle. The divide between then and now, what we were and who we are, and when now becomes then every passing second, what do I do now? Thought is powerful, and it does exist. Trust me. One of thought's little nagging forms, Nostalgia, is a very tough cookie. It can lock us into a false sense of a way things were to judge how they are. A simpler time not so simple. Natural selection has allowed humans to naturally select what we want remembered. We tend to look back on life with anger or smiles, but rarely understanding. We tend to look back on history as radically different, arcane, a separate system as to how the world works now, but it wasn't so much. Because people are people, a good meal is a good meal, a fun game is a fun game, love is love and we haven't been around very long to change very much.<br />
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I say goodnight to A.J. And Phoenix and fall asleep to the winds blowing outside the R.V. and the rooster crowing. I think about the Divide. I think about the actual continental divide this land is on, the divide between man and beast, man and woman, gay and straight, right and wrong, citizen and outcast, society and chaos, good and evil, natural and unnatural, on the bus or off, divine or crazy. I think about all of the talk and connection I've gone through this weekend already on a soul level and I question its reality. I think about healing. I think I may actually be able to manifest my dreams, my wants. I think the images in my head can happen. I think that maybe this all could be real. Just maybe. But I want to know.<br />
<br />
Look to see<br />
Listen to hear<br />
Breathe to smell<br />
Feel to Touch<br />
Savor to tasteMark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-38176034172615213802011-03-23T01:30:00.000-05:002011-04-05T01:13:54.801-05:00STUCKI'm clawing, digging, scrapping the dirt from underneath the tires of the RV with my bare hands. The Arizona sun is pulsating on my stinking, sweating back and there's no hope in sight. It's 2:30pm and as I spit and pant I raise up on my knees from under the RV and look into the golden brown plains through my cheap sunglasses to a now common horizon, leading endlessly into one of the most beautiful oncoming sunsets my eyes will ever see. Even in the most dire times this landscape of our great west can stop you in your tracks. The Gaylenium Falcon is stuck in the dirt on some crud-hell side-road just feet from the freeway adjacent. We are completely screwed. Our transport, our lifeblood, our home... stuck in the dry Arizona desert dirt and I'm on my stomach ferociously trying to dig us out, a real last ditch effort. And It's all my fault. Kind of. Let me tell you what happened.<br />
<br />
We're on route 40 west towards New Mexico, Shang-high-nooning it out of Arizona as fast as our feet will walk us. I can't quite explain it but... Well let's just eloquently say *EXPLITIVE* this stupid state. We're Down a crew member, Flagstaff was a bust and Jack, A.J. and I are on a mission from God to hit that New Mexico border on time. A.J. Is walking behind as Jack and I are approaching exit 203 when Holy swear word! Wouldn't you know it, a Petrified wood slash Navajo antique center slash Mannequin Vignette museum slash ostrich farm stands right in front of us!<br />
<br />
So naturally I park the RV, interview the Ostriches for the film, who by the way are essentially the last of the dinosaurs and a surprisingly supportive faction, and get some great footage of the 'scene' presented in front of this nowhere land tourist trap. There is a huge dirt lot in front of the petrified wood shack with 1950s cars, forgotten ivory handless mannequins with strangely nice figures sexily posed in front of a landscape of unsellable blech. In the distance surrounding the lot are gigantic life size dinosaurs overlooking this fallout shelter of absurdity and a whole backyard full of pottery and petrified crap and God knows what else.<br />
<br />
To stay safe on our walk, we do as best as we can to stick to the side roads, dirt roads and whatever comes up on the 'walking directions' platform from lovely google. It isn't always up to date. Jack and I leave this Jumanji of wonder to hit our meeting point with A.J. two miles up. Now, I know what our RV is capable of and believe me, this bird likes to fly. So we trounce through some fun dirt roads, a jolly chuckle the whole way, coasting aside the freeway not forty feet to our right. The road gets bumpier. The waning hills we drive deeper and steeper. Soon it is evident, we're on an 'off road path'. Screw It let's drive! Not so much...<br />
<br />
Two miles past the creepy radiation field of sexy mannequins, 1950s super cars, dinosaurs, petrified wood samples and ostrich farm Jack and I find ourselves at a halt. In front, a half road divided in two by a sinking hole on the left side. No place for a 28 foot RV. To the right, a 15 foot tall rocky dirt mound supporting the whizzing freeway ahead. Behind, a hilly dirt road that quickly snuck up on us as we were jollying about the ostrich farm behind. To the left...ahhhhhhhh to the left...<br />
<br />
"We should turn around" Jack says in a voice that hits the tenor of 'we really shouldn't be driving here'<br />
<br />
"O.k." I say, in a heroic voice of 'we really shouldn't be driving here'.<br />
<br />
To the left is a steep dirt road incline, a mile long 'driveway' with typical Arizona golden nothing brush to either side and a ridiculously misplaced blue house standing alone in the panorama of it all. Who lives there? I make the turn, oh so carefully, and see ahead lays a dirt trench in the dirt road. Dirt. Shit. Dirt.<br />
<br />
"K-Turning It" I confidently state as the RV begins her steep descent on the long driveway of 'we really shouldn't be driving here'. Quickly I see yet another trench ahead and pull the truck to the left into a flat clearing of brush. "Whatever, we've done this before" I claim from nowhere and in an instant I feel her sink. I accelerate and she moans further into the dirt. I stop and reverse. Nothing. I jerk it into drive immediately and we are moving. Then we are not. Drive, accelerate, nothing...<br />
<br />
Reverse, accelerate, nothing. Drive accelerate, nothing. Reverse, accelerate, nothing. Drive accelerate, nothing. Rev! Rev! Rev! Nothing! Nothing! Deeper deeper deeper we go. Dear bazoinking god nothing shit holy hell Jesus no in the lord of all things no shit hll balls and all sorts of other obscenity! Not here! Not now! Please do not let this RV be stuck in the dirt in a made up un-map-able road in the middle of Arizona when we are so close to being out... It Is. It really is. We are stuck in the dirt. Our Ride, our lifeblood, our home... So, I make a call: <br />
<br />
"Hello Triple A, this is Stacy, you have been referred to us, how may I help you?"<br />
<br />
Please keep in mind I have already been on the phone with Henry Kim, my personal AAA agent that I signed up with a month earlier, for twenty minutes before I actually get through to a towing service. Henry soon realized that I don't have RV insurance per se...and is on my side, per se...<br />
<br />
Henry - "I'm going to transfer you to roadside but DONT say the words motor, home, or Motor Home ok? Oh or RV ok? Because you are not covered under that."<br />
<br />
"I thought you insured the person not the vehicle..."<br />
<br />
"Well yes, but, well, not exactly"<br />
<br />
"I read you loud and clear Hank". Yeah I read him, like I read <i>O.K. Magazine</i><br />
<br />
Sweat drips down my face while I am on hold for AAA roadside assistance and I'm starting to enjoy the early spring benefits of desert heat loosening up my muscles. A woman answers and I'm on my game not to spill the RV beans. It went a little something like this:<br />
<br />
"Thats right ma'am, the corner of washboard and wanalanca...a big truck.....stuck in the dirt.....well it's a Ford E-350, technically....what do I mean technically?....yes that's right...well yeah, sort of, I mean she's a big truck...nooooooooooooooooo not an RV...define 'Motor Home?'...uhhh we sleep in it?... ...nooooooooooooooooo that's not us, nope. Not a motor home....See, what had happened was...uh huh...well yes we are within 100 feet of a paved road, why does that matter?....uh huh...ohhhhhhhhh, yep right of the highway I can see it from here...well no, you gotta take exit 303 and drive east on the west side...no, EAST on the west side...Yeah it's past this radiation field of sexy mannequins, 1950s super cars, dinosaurs, petrified wood, meteorites and ostrich farm...hello? <br />
<br />
So AAA eventually screwed us as every insurance agency is want to do because they apparently only provide 'Road Side' assistance to paved roading customers only. So here we are so close to getting out of this miserable state with our R.V. Stuck in the prettiest damn field you've ever seen. I suggested we claim the land and just live out our lives there but Jack and A.J. Differed in they're enthusiasm. So after a few more phone calls Enter, Williams and Son Towing.<br />
<br />
The sun is fading fast when the hulking black tow truck arrives, hours longer than expected. He was driving aimlessly east on the east side of the highway instead of east on the west side. J. Williams Sr. Called me from the shop saying he couldn't get a hold of his son because the diesel engine was too loud to hear a cell phone ring. Given our predicament I'm glad we were getting some diesel help for this dirty disaster.<br />
<br />
So out steps J. Williams Jr. With his beat up flannel, big rimmed glasses, greasy hands and sun leathered red face grinning with a great big toothless smile. He's almost sixty years old. I wonder if he got his dads good looks. We shake hands.<br />
<br />
"Thank God you're here." I say in my best manly garage talk, guy voice. "Sorry about all of the direction confusion. We're really in the shit here!"<br />
"Oh no don't worry getting here is our responsibility". I like him already. He doesn't use the words "Can't" or "Per Se".<br />
<br />
So he drives down and ahead of us on the dirt driveway, stops inches before the trench and begins to let out some good old fasion American steal line. The truck is noisy and greasy and old school and I am glad as hell this is our rescue vessel. I ask if can use helpnlet out the cable. I can feel the Torque of the old girl as I take over holding down the metal lever and watch it slowly drag out. I'm like a kid at the fire house again. J. Jr. Is hooking the front of the R.V. But I know we are not out of this yet.<br />
<br />
After ten minutes we are ready to go. I take over the drivers seat from A.J., put her in low gear and enter the zone. Work, work, work, work, work I keep repeating in my head as I feel the cable tighten and accelerate. The falcon starts to move but I realize it is dragging not driving. I rev slow and hard and inches at a time freedom comes closer. Then it hits flat ground, speeds immediately and I haul ass another ten feet over the ridge and back on the driveway having to slam the breaks before I single handedly turn the tow business to just J. Williams Sr. Towing. <br />
<br />
J. Jr. Darts out of the way and we stop inches behind the truck, now fully on the driveway. There is minor celebration but I know that I now have to reverse this baby up the steep dirt hill, cut it tight enough so as not to hit the rock wall and stop short enough so as not to back into the gap. It strikes me we very well could get stuck again, blocking the tow truck and requiring a third truck to get us out in the dark. Not gonna happen. I know there is only one way to do this.<br />
<br />
"Here we go!" I cry as I nail into reverse and slam the gas. The old girl starts fighting valiantly up the hill backwards. I'm cutting left, I'm cutting right, I'm running over grass and rocks and avoiding the dirt. I'm screaming, willing with every inch of my being.<br />
<br />
"C'mon baby, c'mon baby, c'mon baby. Hit it! Hit it! Hit it! Push! Push! Push!<br />
<br />
I sounded like an overly enthusiastic gymnastics coach or a Lemahaze teacher. We make it to the top and I hit the breaks right before the wall. After an intense series of pulling forward and reversing and damn near running over Jack who is operating the classic hand movement signal ground control game, we got it. There we are, completely in line on the dirt road and ready to get the explitive out of here. <br />
<br />
Jr. Makes it up the hill just fine and is trailing us back to the highway. The horizon is warm and welcoming as we drive back past the old radiation field of sexy mannequins, 1950s super cars, dinosaurs, petrified wood, meteorites and ostrich farm. Of course we have to follow him back to the shop to pay dad the nearly $200 dollars this mistake cost us. The AAA membership for the year cost $97 total. I guess you get what you pay for.Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-56201545396638353272011-03-14T14:53:00.000-05:002011-03-14T14:54:53.080-05:0066PART TWO<br />
<br />
Jack is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. We're at the Afro-man, yes, Afro-man Concert at some bar in Flagstaff complete with a thirteen dollar cover, awkward bartenders, and a whole barrel full of underaged, wrangled up idiots and completely misunderstood drinks. I recommend the Maker's and Cranberry. Afro-man. He's the famed rapper of mid nineties funny weed rap fame with albums in cluding A Colt .45 Christmas, Fro-Bama Head of state and the infamous Beacuse I Got High with the hit single, "Because I Got High" being the pinnacle of his heavenly precipice of success. You may remember all of this. Your parents probably don't. Many may argue "Colt .45 and Two Zig Zags" is the better tune, but which one is more timely iconic of the mid to late nineties? We will never know. Now, they're headlining half empty college bars, its spring break' you know, in Northern A.Z. where he lets all of his buddies perform opening concerts for hours and hours. No Afro-man.<br />
<br />
After a few Gin and Milks A.J. is in the front row heckling some wacked performer wearing pajama pants, a basketball jersey, some bling and the harlem globe trotters hair to match. His contorted white face glimmering in the faded stage light sing/rapping his lungs out in this scraggly high pitched comedic I don't know what. Oh and there is no band or D.J. Or any real music. Just this clown and his pre-school beats resembling Oscar The Grouch Dissing his homies and slamming down J's, blasting over the speaker system. It's bizarre and bad and amazing all at once, quite literally the worst thing I have ever seen. Do you know how incredible it is to see something that bad? Chance of a lifetime. Wow, Flagstaff.<br />
<br />
So while A.J. continues heckling and begging this Vanilla Nice not to do another song, the sea of underaged beer zombies are cheering ferociously for this youtube famous I don't know what. In the doorway five bouncers are arguing with a guy who is getting thrown out because he complained to the management that he wanted his money back.<br />
<br />
"I paid thirteen dollars and this ain't even a five dollar show!"<br />
<br />
He's right. <br />
<br />
Jack is in disbelief of this Generation gratuitously prancing around the bar in full support of this atrocity. I am too. His face turns pale as "one of the best rap songs of all time" as he put it, is playing between two terrible sets and not one person in the crowd knows it. Jack looks nauseus and it's not from the Rum and Pickle juice. See, we're not too many years away from that generation. These children scurrying half bagged, drinking whatever is in their face and wearing froofy shirts and tiny skirts, collars popped and pants dropped, mutating every form of fashion some starlet sports in O.K. Magazine oblivious to themselves. Its hilarious, and frustrating. I sound like an old man.<br />
<br />
This increase in technology, the rapid travel of communication, babble here to babble there like that and the power of knowing whatever you want right at your finger tips. It is breeding unearned knowledge and not being treated with the responsibility it deserves. I guess it's a lot like money. We are getting smarter and dumber all at once, with each generation, constructing these amazing tools just to master them. It is not an open loop. And with it comes the kids, just five, seven years younger than myself and I cant even recognize them.<br />
<br />
So how do we balance this? How do we live with such easy incredible communication <br />
devices the likes of which are widening the generation gap in human interaction and closing it in on years between? I remember the first time I ever called a girl I was in high school, it was on a Wednesday at 9:15pm, I know because I planned it that way, and her dad answered. Holy Crap! Imagine that? On a home phone nonetheless. I really nailed it too, left a message with him and everything. And before phones? I guess the letter. Before the letter? I can't imagine. That's probably why we learn to talk before we learn to write...<br />
<br />
The earth is quaking, shaking us from everyday life into a chaotic reality of our own constructions, the consequence of which slaps us in the face when these tides of our planet erupt. Imagine this, Waves crash, not networks, Waves, speeding from a turbulent epicenter which we cannot predict and in an instant, a nation gone. Power erupted. Power corrupted. Total meltdown. And it isn't bombs or wars or outbreak that is the cause. So who is to blame? Not a game worth playing, let the media and churches sink their fangs into that one.<br />
<br />
It Must be a great age to be a journalist now a days. Dictatorships falling, wars erupting, A Black President in America, Natural disasters contesting coverage against man made, Football cancelled, Its getting colder not hotter, Our Banks bankrupt, Our Towers fell, our paranoia grows, Twitter, Myspace and all the rest are real and getting bigger by the day, there's online video, online College, instant celebrities, live streaming up to the second coverage of every horrible thing to strike upon us, bam, right in front of our eyes with an advertisement next to it to help fix something I don't have or need. And the more we think it, believe it, there it is and will be, happening just as we thought. All we see is all we see no matter if your awake or in a dream. What we have been blinded by is real experience.<br />
<br />
Out on the road the rules of life remain as constant as the clock. Not in Arizona of course where they don't participate in Daylight Savings thus furthering my curiosity as to "What's the Dam Time?" My stay in Arizona is slowly becoming an episode of the Twighlight Zone. But as confused as I will continue to be there are still no need for any questions to one another, just respect me and I'll respect you. That has held true as we pass 500 miles of walking so far.<br />
<br />
The elevation of Northern Arizona makes it tighter to breathe, lowers your blood pressure and makes your body work harder. It's a workout just to try to sleep. In these hidden snow capped mountains spring has finally arrived. The sky is clear, the weather tepid and the KOA park we are in is a private forest at the base of a mountain. It's a short world away from the Mojave just weeks ago and a life time from New York.. I think how good it feels, how timeless those hidden Arizona peaks seem in the early spring mornings, How without my computer, the papers and phones, without the luxury of it all contrasting the evergreens that hang over my restful head, I would never know Japan even existed. I would just be here, smiling, not a care in the world.Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-47903442160340162632011-03-03T23:07:00.000-06:002011-03-03T23:07:36.139-06:00KINGMAN, A.Z.You give us a crappy old donation funded four dollar museum and we'll give you a universe. We take any experience, any bland rocky facade, a truck stop in the middle of apathy, an unbuilt dream or aged town, a person place or thing that has been and we turn it on it's turned head. We thoroughly devalue the richest of treasures and hold the lonely forgotten on a pedestal. We ride this long trip down nowhere and turn roadkill into history. Legend. We think, we sketch,we paint, then we create. Worlds unseen. Honesty rarely scene. We fight, we suffer, we live lives not our own and taste droplets of others' gushing reality. We take a piece of paper, flimsy in the wind, and turn it into a long distance flying bullet in a few folds. We risk the burden of those with no voice so we may give them our gift of time, empathy and sight. We show what is thought, we present what can be. It's a harder job than anyone can imagine and we do it because it chose us. We question it, we hate it, some of us are lucky enough to embrace it. What else is there? We are artists and that is why we exist. Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-57078098814447473072011-03-01T14:57:00.000-06:002011-03-01T14:57:17.692-06:00THE LAST STOPI've lost everything. My keys, my wallet, my knife, my wallet, my hat, my mind, my aloe, my home and my wallet. Not really but half the time I don't know where I've put anything in this damn R.V. so I guess we'll say I misplaced them. Even time. Right Now I'm in northern Arizona which is literally on it's own time plain. Walking from the Hoover Dam Nevada side to the Hoover Dam Arizona side takes an hour in a second. It really puts time in perspective and it's fun to ask someone on the bridge "Do you have the Dam time?" They love it. Especially the german tourists. <br />
<br />
See, Nevada is on Pacific Standard Time but Arizona is on Martian Standard Time, so at 6pm Nevada time, Arizona chooses to be 7pm even though the next state over is New Mexico, which goes back to Pacific Earth time which goes back to my point of what's the Dam time? I think I've lost my Dam mind...See? I read that Mars isn't this horrific flaming red bouncy ball planet but actually looks pretty much like the Arizona Desert with dry, arid orange flats leading to dry rusty orange mountains that outline a pale basic blue endless sky. I've been saying the desert feels like an alien planet this whole time. Now it makes sense.<br />
<br />
So here we are on Mars, we crossed this great big crazy concrete Dam and walked another day further in to the middle of nowhere and we've gained an hour of light and lost an hour of the day at the same time and confusing as this is for me to understand it seems that things tend to go that way. As Andy would sing, one of our best friends back in New York, "The more things change...The more things change." There's a give and take to everything and most of the time you're either the give or the take and you're too caught up in life to see what is right in front of you. A.J. Keeps quoting Kesey saying "You're either on the Bus or You're off it". I'm on the road and Im staying on it. <br />
<br />
I can feel this push and this pull, as we all secretly do, but it's becoming suddenly clearer when I'm walking. From my body straight to the winds, to the sky and the earth, to the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. From my mind to the plains, my heart to the Gods. It is everything ancient cultures would sketch on stones and temples and build sun dials and anamorphic statues and celebrate and have ceremonies instead of convoluting into writing. It is what we all know and can't explain so we fight it and ourselves and each other to pass the time instead. Drama us a great distraction. It's the black and white, Yin and Yang, the push and the pull. And if you don't believe me ask Mr. Einstein. He'll be back in 50 years to explain everything I have been talking about when his time machine finally starts working in 1945<br />
<br />
So after walking another eight miles through the Martian wasteland this morning we reach The Last Stop, literally, a brand spanking new Roadhouse on Rt. 93 called The Last Stop, just 50 miles from the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam on either side and boy do they have the best Dam burger in the world. It's a wacky place, muraled left right up and down with cooky character drawings of Jack Nicholson riding a Harley or the Terminator arm in arm with The Blues Brothers staring you down and John Wayne saying Hi on the rest room stall. But it has a sense of Humor to it and the staff is great and it's got the best Dam burger in the world! I had one for breakfast and made the poor mistake of not having another one for lunch. Dinner's coming up soon...<br />
<br />
Its 3pm, we've already been in this place for two hours having a blast, telling old war stories with Mike the eccentric cook and Linda the PR/Waitress extraordinaire and Russ, the owner, pours us all another round of Grand Canyon Ale on the house. He tells me that he made sure to order the burger meat from everywhere across the country, testing Kobe guys and rib eye guys, north west south east and this and that, but all American. He sampled everything to see if it was the right stuff for the best burger but nothing was the best until, he found a private distributor with home grown free range cattle. Russ pays a good dollar for what he gets but it's the best Dam tasting meat out there. I don't eat much meat but when I laid my taste buds into that medium rare Last Stop Burger at 8:45am before walking, oh baby. Fueled for the day. I could tell that Bull had lived some good virile days in it's lifetime and that's something that isn't happening enough in America. <br />
<br />
You see Russ had a bunch of residential real estate all over the place but was smart enough to to get rid of most it before the Banks imploded a few years back and screwed us all in the pooch. So Russ takes his money that he managed to not lose in the housing crisis and buys a run down gas station-lot-ice cream stand and all the land that surrounds it. Trust me, it is the only thing anywhere out here aside from a few other run down lots but The Last Stop just so happens to be on the way to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas in either direction. Well good old fashion American Entrepreneurialism ensues and thus Russ turned the shack into a Roadhouse with great food, souvenirs, gas, mini mart, R.V. Lot, outdoor concert venue Grand Canyon Tours and Grand Canyon Ales. The service, quality and workforce are impecable and wouldn't ya know it, instead of walking our planned 26 miles today we made it the first 8 and haven't gone any further than the bar since we hit The Last Stop. I should have known this would happen. Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-71648260269013052722011-02-25T00:56:00.000-06:002011-02-25T01:25:50.228-06:00VIVALAS VEGAS<br />
<br />
There's chills in my bones. The air is growing colder with the elevation and the creaking swing ahead in the R.V Park is rocking like a horror movie against the wind. I love little silhouettes like that. Vegas is gone, a trickled alien light board disappearing through the valley into a blue sunk dusk. <br />
<br />
I walked past it today, finally. Went on south through the suburbs. I guess I didn't realize there were any. The desert middle class living seems lonely. Wake up, go to star bucks, manage whatever, all with those picturesque unphotagraphical mountains strung across the sky. What a sight. But what a lowly commercial spec to live in. It feels like a retirement community from Floridazona in the middle of a dry dusty valley. Nice cars, nice strip malls and shopping centers that look like strip malls and shopping centers anywhere else in the U.S. that's nice and surrounded by more chains in malls of more chains. It's a high end Baker, C.A. with gambling and gun stores. Tourists say Viva Las Vegas, these people live Las Vegas. <br />
<br />
Parts of the west are lost so far as I can tell. Baron parodies of a glamorized time, ridden with empty casinos, hackneyed ghost tours, kitschy thrift stores and semi trucks galore. Towns are struggling for business and a purpose and enough people to actually call themselves a town. They're filled with good souls and souls sucked into screens and souls trapped in a bubbles like any other bubble. But they'll survive so long as people keep passing through. As long as vegas stands people will be passing through. <br />
<br />
Im developing a philosophy called 'What does the Bear do?' Well, it wakes up in the morning, yawns, leaves the cave, gets a good scratch in before heading to the rest room, wanders the woods on his way to the stream where he enjoys his salmon lunch - he's watching his weight you know AND helping control the Salmon population- scares off some deer, eats a campers garbage, puts the moves on a friendly lady bear and depending on the season does all right for himself, heads back to the cave and goes to sleep. If its rainy out, screw it. The Bear will have a "me" day. And when it's cold? Forget it. The Bear sleeps through that nasty weather only to wake up in a beautiful spring and watch all the life rise back up. That's about it. Makes sense.<br />
<br />
What does Man do? Las Vegas.<br />
<br />
It was a tough three weeks getting to Vegas and our anticipation was ill met. Literally. A.J. began a six day vomitous romp through the Sin City lights with some unknown alien death bug while the bottoms of my feet were stripped down to red and blistering. This of course culminated on Thursday, thirty miles before the strip. Nonetheless I was excited to get there, see people, lights, buffets. I've been known to play a hand or two in my day as well. The forced rest was much needed and Ballys proved to be a very accommodating hotel-mall-bar with gambling and go-go dancers. <br />
<br />
Our room was upgraded at check in when A.J. ran like a flaming giraffe to the bathroom cupping his mouth before being able to sign the room bill. After informing Esther, the charming korean receptionist, that we had in fact <i>walked</i> to Las Vegas and A.J. was just feeling the effects, she immediately put us on a twenty second floor strip view deluxe room. Thank you Esther.<br />
<br />
Las Vegas is a tacky boozed up playground for adults who love to get drunk and relive their frat days at big state before living in the middle of nowhere and visiting a shopping mall city, a fantasy land of pricey preoccupation. <br />
<br />
Now, if I had to guess, I would say the entire state of Ohio was given a trip to the ole city of lights this Presidents Day weekend. Midwest tourists, everywhere! With their beer funnels and funny tee shirts and coupon books and boy do they walk slow. In the casino at night there were actually middle aged women sitting in large groups with tiaras on their heads, just like the commercials, drinking champagne, laughing like wombats and having the time of their lives in the "Night Clubs" like carmel, or fromagio or the X located next to the penny slots or table games with charismatic cover bands. It's just, like, the commercials...I can't believe it.<br />
<br />
And guys just love talking to you to to report where theyre staying or what great deal they nailed.<br />
<br />
"Where you stayin partner?"<br />
"Ballys"<br />
"Nicccce. Yep were over at the Aria. Great deal. Beautiful. Nailed it." <br />
<br />
There are great deals everywhere. And boy do they buy, buy, buy, buy. Just stuff. A bunch of plastic souvenir blinky crap nothing stuff. That's all there is to do. Buy stuff. And It's great. It's big and stupid and fun and who doesn't like big stupid fun things and shows and cover bands and fake Sinatras and Streisands and showgirls and lights and money and roller coasters sailing through New York City. It can get tiring. The impersonators are weird. Why do people go see fake Michael Jackson....<br />
<br />
But I like Vegas because I can sit down at a bar and order an Eiffel Tower of Margarita or a Football of beer or a Flamingo of Pina Colada. And they bring it right to you! Everywhere you walk is a moving walkway or escalator so you don't really have to walk anywhere, which is why it's incredible all those Ohioites, Ohioins? Ohiosters? People from Ohio walk so slow. Outside of Ballys is a hundred foot moving walkway that's engulfed by these continuing neon rings like a bright neon vortex. You just stand and slowly move through this gigantic unnecessary light tube from the lobby to the street. It's fun to ask the valet if he can point you in the direction of the "Tron Tunnel" as we have so aptly named it. Oh and every restaurant has scantily clad waitresses and bartenders who do tricks. Unless its the greek place I went to with the all you can eat Prime Rib special. They're waitresses are old and homely but they really know how to dish out round after round of prime rib. <br />
<br />
So I spent most of my weekend sleeping or down in the spa or wandering the casino floor if my feet would allow me and wonder what there was to do at a casino without any money. I would wander the other Casinos too. Caesars is incomprehensible, The Imperial Palace is a dump and The Paris is lovely this time of year. I had slice of pizza inside New York New York at a stand in the cheeky hotel mini NYC located at Broadway and West Ave around the corner from 5th ave and across from Greenwich Village just past Brooklyn, next to the restrooms. The geography may have been off but the size of the fake three foot apartments located above the little shops were about right.<br />
<br />
After an hour of wandering with no answer each time I would return to the room or the spa or the casino floor. It was during this wandering on Sunday that I got a text from A.J. who is back in the room recovering, -Dangerous Muse is playing at Krave tonight. must go.- Dangerous Muse...oh boy.<br />
<br />
So pop sensation Dangerous Muse is playing a show at this club A.J. has been craving to go to, Krave. i pronounce it kra-vey. You can guess what kind of club it is. My friend Tom is one of two members of this electro pop group of mild fame. They're ridiculous and hilarious and great and one hell of a show. Both Tom and the front man Mike Furey went to college with A.J. And I, lived across the hall in my apartment in the bronx, and just so happen to be in Vegas when we just so happen to be walking through Vegas. So A.J. Felt miraculously better and my foot healed instantly and we put on our sunday best and went to meet them for Dinner at some french place before their show.<br />
<br />
Tom sat hyper and joking with his oversized sunglasses and gelled half hawk red hair looking as always the rockstar while furey took in the strip from our prime outdoor table wearing his prim suit, risky business shades and looking as always the movie star. Their keyboardist was there too I think and someone's cousin. We sat and laughed and caught up and went back to the cabana that Krave put them up in, napped and headed to the venue around 1:30am. They were supposed to perform at 1:30am. Rockstars....<br />
<br />
We sat backstage, enjoyed the complimentary bottle Jameson and cheeses and bullshitted with Tom and the keyboardist while Tyler the manager drooled over Furey, did I mention yet this was a big tacky gay club, and by about 2:30am Dangerous Muse was ready to perform some electro pop mayhem. And for nine and a half minutes they ruled. Yes they were flown in and payed and put up in a cabana to perform two songs on a Sunday night. Rockstars...<br />
<br />
After the show Im sitting in the V.I.P lounge while Tom and Mike sell autographs and the Keyboardist pushes merchandise. The best part was that it was a Sunday night on Presidents Day Weekend and Vegas is flooded with Ohio and they're looking for a comp anywhere. So the club is filled with hundreds of awkward straight teenagers and old couples who got coupons for the concert dancing their pants off in that cheesy white person tourist kind of way with lots of finger snapping while Dangerous Muse, Logo T.V.s number one band three weeks straight, is blasting. The dance floor is surrounded by ten oily muscular men in thongs Go Go dancing on platforms and scaffolding in a fog filled strobe lit pop dungeon. In thongs. And the whole time everyone is seemingly clueless. I think the tourists just thought that this was what a night club was like.<br />
<br />
"Great Deal"Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-76372840823944706042011-02-24T00:37:00.000-06:002011-02-24T00:37:58.046-06:00A PHONE CONVERSATIONIm in our 22nd floor Hotel room at Bally's in Las Vegas, groggy from a 5:30am radio interview I did with an NYC station. Im on the phone with my Mom trying to explain how to send the this very blog to all of her friends. It went something like this:<br />
<br />
ME ...no mom you just copy the link and paste it to your email-<br />
<br />
MOM: Ok I'm clicking the thing and its not-<br />
<br />
ME: -no just select and copy it-<br />
<br />
MOM: I did that Mark.<br />
<br />
ME: Select it so it's highlighted at the top.<br />
<br />
MOM: I think I've got it.<br />
<br />
ME: You copied the link?<br />
<br />
MOM: What? No. What are you talking about?<br />
<br />
ME: Ok, why don't you just forward the email I sent you to everyone you want because the info is already there-<br />
<br />
MOM: Do what?<br />
<br />
Me: Forward it....forward the same email you received from me back to all of your friends-<br />
<br />
MOM: Forward it? <br />
<br />
ME: Yes. You know how you send me all those chain emails all the time, the ones that say you'll die or have bad luck or get food poisoning for seven years or whatever if you don't send it to 30 friends?<br />
<br />
MOM: I do not send those anymore, I delete them-<br />
<br />
ME: -do that, but with the email I sent you.<br />
<br />
MOM: Delete it?<br />
<br />
ME: No don't-<br />
<br />
MOM: Oh so you mean they have to read it now and resend it or else-<br />
<br />
ME: No they won't have to resend it or else-<br />
<br />
MOM: Thats a good idea-<br />
<br />
ME: -No don't do that-<br />
<br />
MOM: Why not? <br />
<br />
ME: Because it's only a chain email if you want it to be.<br />
<br />
Pause...<br />
<br />
MOM: Ok. I think I get it. Now, is there a way I could email people and have them immediately sent to your site?<br />
<br />
Pause...<br />
<br />
ME: Yes Mom...Thats exactly what we're talking about right now. Just do everything I just said-<br />
<br />
MOM: I AM doing everything you said Mark, It's not working. You just never-<br />
<br />
ME: -OK, ok ok...just start a new email then and address it to everyone you want to see it. Then in the body just type www, dot-<br />
<br />
MOM: Hold On, w w w, dottttt-<br />
<br />
ME: uh huh, dot-<br />
<br />
MOM: Dot...<br />
<br />
ME: Yes...dot, Sin loud-<br />
<br />
MOM: -hold on...ok, sin loud-<br />
<br />
ME: -speak easy, dot-<br />
<br />
MOM: -speak...easy...<br />
<br />
ME: -dot, com. Or whatever site you want them to see-<br />
<br />
MOM: Wont this just take me to your site if I type this?<br />
<br />
ME: Not unless you click it. Now that URL becomes a link and as soon as they click it they'll go straight to the blog. Like if you sent an email to Jackie that said, Hey Jackie check out www.CNN.com Then from the email she could just click the link and go to CNN. It's a shortcut so any web address you type automatically becomes a link-<br />
<br />
MOM: Your on CNN?<br />
<br />
ME: No It's an example-<br />
<br />
MOM: Ok I think I got it, but I don't want them to see that strange man on your site.<br />
<br />
Pause...<br />
<br />
ME: Strange man?<br />
<br />
MOM: Well there's this man at the top of your site, right there in the open, right next to you and I have no idea who that is.<br />
<br />
Pause...<br />
<br />
ME: ....What?<br />
<br />
MOM: That man Mark, on top of your writing, do you know him?<br />
<br />
ME: No...<br />
<br />
MOM: Well why on earth is he right there on YOUR site next to your writing and my name?<br />
<br />
ME: Your Name?<br />
<br />
MOM: Yes. I did one of those...things, so I can read your...what is this thing?<br />
<br />
ME: Blog-<br />
<br />
MOM: -right, but who is that man?<br />
<br />
ME: What?<br />
<br />
Pause...<br />
<br />
ME: Ohhhhhh, yeah I don't know him but he has his own blog so he's probably reading mine.<br />
<br />
MOM: Well why is his photo there? <br />
<br />
ME: He probably has a blogger account.<br />
<br />
MOM: Well I just signed up my name for on those to read your site everyday and my picture isn't there.<br />
<br />
ME: Have you uploaded a photo of yourself to your own blogger account?<br />
<br />
MOM: What are you talking about? Mark, there is a man on your site and you need to get, him, off. Now.<br />
<br />
ME: He isn't on my site Mom, its googles site, and He's following me.<br />
<br />
MOM: What? You're telling me someone you don't know is following you!<br />
<br />
ME: Yeah it's how the Internet works now. You want as many people you don't know to look at your stuff and follow you. The more you have the better because you then become connected to everyone they're connected to and the more connected you become the better you are.<br />
<br />
MOM: At What?<br />
<br />
ME: At the internet. See, this guy follows me which means I should follow him, even though I don't know him, so that maybe people already following him will see my picture on his page and start following me. It's like free publicity but using other people.<br />
<br />
MOM: And you don't have to know them?<br />
<br />
ME: No. I think Out of the nine hundred something friends I have on Facebook I really only know like, 14 people.<br />
<br />
MOM: Really?<br />
<br />
ME: Yes. <br />
<br />
MOM: Well I don't like that.<br />
<br />
ME: Me niether...<br />
<br />
Pause...Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-65085219487881292902011-02-16T00:20:00.000-06:002011-02-16T13:10:17.953-06:00MOON CYCLEAnother Desert dusk and the stars are gaining glow. A.j. And I are standing in the sandy clearing at the Valley Falls Safety Rest Area 20 miles past Baker, California. Baker is supposedly the hottest place in America and did you know they have the worlds biggest thermometer? It's great. It's actually not that big, fifty feet maybe? But it sure is cool looking, all lit up in Red at night with a bright neon sign reading "GATEWAY TO DEATH VALLEY" but the only road leading out of Baker, the 15, is a direct route to Las Vegas, which is two hours away from Death Valley. Either way, it was a nice landmark to strive for two nights ago walking in to town. And it's the world's biggest thermometer!<br />
<br />
The town of Baker is really just a mile long strip of Gas Stations and very sanitary fast food joints located in bigger mini fast food joint strip malls that also sell Leather Vests, Cheap Beer, Crude Bumper Stickers and other parifinalia mish mosh. And Jerky. Lots of Jerky. It's Great. Not really, but it's pretty convenient and fun and a real slice of life. Subway, Jack-In-The-Box, Burger King, Denny's, Mad Greek, Pizza Hut, TCBY, and Quiznos to name a few other slices. A real fast food Americana salad. Baker. The Temperature Read 48 Degrees walking out. <br />
<br />
As we stare at the moon after an exhausting day A.J. and I comment on how it's changed since we began our journey. It was just a sliver of light at 5 a.m. On Venice Beach two weeks ago. Now it has become near full, quietly significant and noticeable.<br />
<br />
Walking through the dessert is like terracing an Alien planet. Behind us the Sun, ahead the Moon and the powder sky swells with pulsing clouds in the broad dessert daylight. My feet trek and trek across the brown red dirt of the Mojave and she hangs steady, white, right in front of me and it doesn't feel real. The mountains in the distance seem to grow smaller with each step, expanding and contracting. I think I'm losing it. Walking towards them they seem more and more foreign as little tiny lizard guys scurry in front to hide under dried out dessert brush. They look like miniature dinosaurs. They basically are.<br />
<br />
Every few miles I would spot a tiny pink flower growing through the dried out bedrock of a once stream or a crazy looking flat cactus I've never seen. It's amazing where life can sprout. Its amazing <i>what</i> life will sprout. I watch my step every step for the massive ant hills that spread. Not just for fear of tripping and being eaten alive by alien desert ants but those hills look like they took a really long time to build. This entire sweating excursion is in a place I've never been with terrain I've never walked, weary creatures I've never seen and the whole time the moon is right there staring me in the face as the Sun, brighter than I have ever felt, strikes my back...It may as well be Mars. These are just a few of the unique qualities of the West that you have to see to disbelieve.<br />
<br />
An old acting teacher of mine lives by the moon. He's a Viking. A striking, funny guy of five foot five with a beer belly and something timeless about him. His bright white hair bristles against his bright white viking beard and personalized ADIDAS sneakers. I began to notice he would often subtly dictate our classes based on the moon.<br />
<br />
"New Moon this week. Tough one..." <br />
<br />
Things like that. New moons are always tough. He was also a mask maker, making masks during different cycles of the moon. I pretended to understand what he meant at the time but I was 22 and thought I knew everything. I'm excited that it will be a full moon in Vegas this weekend. I am starting to fall into it's calendar rather than our own.<br />
<br />
Five hundred years ago sailors crossed worlds on our earth using just the stars and winds to guide them on hand crafted massive wooden ships built to handle the hells of the sea. For all they knew they were going to fall off. That's guts. Mental strategy and problem solving used in full force with physical endurance and grit. True brilliance, one taken for granted now. We drive and drive, so comfortable. "Don't move to L.A. the traffic is a nightmare." Mapping the Arctic was a nightmare, just ask Captain Cook. <br />
<br />
We live in a "Complete" World now, A globe, A Mapped Planet. Google Earth it, you'll see. Our GPS loses power on the way to Target, A business meeting, Disneyland or wherever and we freak out. People are so preoccupied in they're own world it seems we have forgotten to look up. Walking is meditative. Walking the Mojave is spiritual. When you work your body as hard as your mind there is a satisfying clarity and good nights sleep ahead.<br />
<br />
The moon grows a halo piercing clearly through the sailing night clouds. A.J. Says its bad luck almost in sync with the cawing crow that swoops in front of us. We laugh. The air is much colder now than the day and I want to go back to the R.V. As I stare silently at the sky I think...<br />
<br />
I've looked at the map my entire life. I always saw California, I always believed It was there. I assumed. Now that I am walking it, I see California, and I can't believe I'm here.Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-24363370720345125482011-02-14T01:37:00.000-06:002011-02-14T13:56:10.954-06:00FACEBOOKI'm at the kitchen table of the R.V. Which is also Johns convertible bed and the curried rice were hosing down after a 22 mile day is spicy in all the right ways. Were bullshitting, eating while the ripping motors from the 15 zoom constant behind the Valero Gas Station were homed behind for the night. I'm exhausted. We all are. I think it's Sunday but days are losing relevance in the best possible way.<br />
<br />
I pour some more hot sauce on my rice, it's the cure all to bad food and a blessing to the good. In tonight's case a blessing. SNL is blaring from Hulu on our Mac Book Pro but our Wireless VZW 5 spot WiFi is too slow because were out of 3G range and the HD runs at too high a rate. God the problems we face traveling across the country. <br />
<br />
The crew starts discussing some guy who I know I should know but I don't know who or why I should know him and when I ask I'm met with a glare by all.<br />
<br />
"He wrote social network?"<br />
<br />
"Oh he did that..." I reply calmly. I'm still on a bet that I make it through the day without making a single joke which is giving me stroke like convulsions at almost every instant. The group is beginning to invent games to distract us on 22 mile days walking through desolation California with the same old poetic train alongside us, keeping it's beauty but losing it's appeal as the tracks again disappear into the horizon at another breathtaking sunset. My head rambles in thoughts of all directions and I think...<br />
<br />
There is an evaporating America that no one sees. Tweetless country folk with nothing to update, finding joy in their personal freedoms and could care less who you are or what you do so long as we help each other out.<br />
<br />
The weather is an amazing conversation starter in strange areas and an inexplicable means of commonality because who the hell really knows? And if it's hot to you then it is or isn't to me and that is something we can talk about. The winter Mojave is filled with abandoned towns and nothing villages, pieces of places, gas stations that take pride and a struggling fraternity of "what is, is." Its been two weeks and the only kind of people we've encountered are the kind that pull over on the road to ask if you're o.k. <br />
<br />
"Yeah were fine. Thank you so much" I say in a tepid pre dusk eve to a man in a mustache with a four wheeler in the back of his neon blue pick up and a dog on his lap, a Docson Chihuahua mix named Bailey. We talk to him for twenty minutes about life, about the film, about old Native American tools found in the desert and he's loving every second of it as much as we are. I run to get the camera. He says his name is Rodger and A.J. Tells him about why we are walking and he takes a breath, puts deodorant on "for the camera" and says something like:<br />
<br />
" Now Im not Gay. That's just something I'm not. I cant do it. But I'll tell you what, I have to believe, you don't choose it. You are who you are-Ill tell you, I do business with Gay men, interior designers, and boy are they fantastic. They're the best. so who am I to say that it ain't human?"This is the America I am just beginning to discover. <br />
<br />
So, Facebook ( Which should always meta for Twitter, Myspace,IMDB, Friendster, Grinder, Match, Eharmony, okcupid, Adam meet Adam, and all the other literal millions of these social car bombs), The Facebook Movie...<br />
<br />
"Yeah I didn't see it."<br />
<br />
"it's a good movie" <br />
"yeah really good"<br />
<br />
See, I just don't care. I'm lost in my head from the experience I have already had in two weeks walking from Venice Beach to now Baker, which has the worlds largest thermometer for a reason, I'm lost in my thoughts, too much to write, even more to take in. The mind thrives in simple living.<br />
<br />
I already know what Facebook is. I do participate. Why? Because I'm not ready to move to a log cabin yet, though a 1996 Ford Tioga 28 Ft RV is becoming pretty close to the same thing. In my profession you have to adapt to the times, even if you feel out of the time like I usually do. I understand the gift of mass messaging, connection, staying in touch, all the yada yada and agreed positives. But what happens in a generation when people don't know how to speak anymore? How to write? Out here I wonder has the love letter gone? Where is that lost art? I think tomorrow is Valentine's day...<br />
<br />
Our times? my generation? I don't get it, I don't understand what's going on right now. I know every era is important and taxes were always to high and the president is a moron and he's brilliant but this technology, the rate of information being passed at at near light speed, the dirt being dished, the money being made from it, the on and in and in and in and complexities of it all. Our advancements are happening faster than we are but are so user friendly no one stops to realize what is actually happening. Just one click of a button and you are a different person. It must be understood that Facebook is a tool, a connecting resource, not a lifestyle. And yet with Twitter everyone thinks they are a celebrity. There aren't many places to "check in" out here.<br />
<br />
Coast to coast the search for fame...I'll get into that in a bit or maybe later.<br />
<br />
Until now I have lived in New York. Movie tickets are at eleven bucks minimum and that's if you buy from the computer at a senior discount weekend rate. So I, like most New Yorkers, shh its our secret, Only go to movies where stuff blows up and the aliens invade and it's in space at the middle of the earth during a zombie holocaust war with disease breaking out and the semi trucks are gigantic robot weapons from outer space trying to discover the fountain of youth which is all a dream inside an insane asylum and the entire time kaboom! With slow motion action scenes and shrieking sound effects starring Angelina Jolie and Justin Bieber and a CGI version of Jeff Bridges twenty five years ago and it's produced by everybody and in IMAX 3D HD. I pay to see stuff blow up. The good stuff? I wait till I can watch in Solace.<br />
<br />
Facebook...ugh.<br />
<br />
My only interest in seeing the Facebook movie was to set my Blackberry to ring only for Facebook updates, all the while facebooking, which I believe is now an accepted word and will find it's way to Websters. And my Facebooking, causing light and constant noisy response on my phone, would interrupt the rest of the movie experience during this important drama, with the hopeful end result being my removal from The theatre by the security staff, for Facebooking.<br />
<br />
I had to work the Friday night it came out. Shame<br />
<br />
Facebook...<br />
<br />
Ok, With no mention of names, here is the first and most random wall post I can find while scanning my "friends". This message was left on a public profile, for all to see. This is...everything.<br />
<br />
I quote Post:<br />
<br />
<br />
"k sooooo I've been drinking since 11:30am and I AM NOT an alcoholic, so you can imagine what mental state I'm in. I just had a really really rough night and day!!! Ex-BF crap. He was texting taimie over 40 text messages to her alone, with threats. You know how crazy he is and I don't take his threats lightly. My nerves are on end and well....... I've had a few cocktails today. hee hee. We need to have our spaghetti night with miss smelly and roscoe and rilley and kitty.I'm gonna bring my old movies, so you can watch them!! have a great night.....xoxox"<br />
<br />
Facebook...Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-68486638553522372082011-02-10T15:28:00.000-06:002011-02-10T15:28:22.369-06:00Los AngelesIf L.A. Is a a jungle than surely New York is a Mad House which makes me insanely happy to be out in the wild. I arrived on Jan. 17th. Leaving Rochester, where I spent Three weeks with my Family before the journey, it was 9 degrees. 8 hours later I land in L.A. To 80 degree weather. I immediately decide I am never going back to the east coast. this will be a recurring theme.<br />
<br />
In a city like L.A where 'Whatever' is acceptable, I imagine its easy to turn into socialite molases. Kurt Vonnegut once suggested that everyone live in New York but leave before they get too hard and everyone should live in L.A. But leave before they get too soft. At this point I'm<b></b> looking to get as mushy as possible.<br />
<br />
L.A. Is like public high school for grown ups and it's a blast. Sometimes. People work in their scene, their scene is their work and all they seem to discuss is each other and each others work in their scenes. They talk of meaningless teens and tweets, faggy inter twining and only the first three seconds of any statement is comprehended or comprehensible. I think they're all too distracted by the weather. Distracted by The Guys or The girls. Or maybe it just continuously feels like sunday at 2pm and who doesn't love brunch? When it's bathing suit weather year round, I can see how one would become distracted by themselves too. Sometimes. Yes I have only been exposed to a small circle but Im pretty good about getting the feel of a place after a couple weeks. call it my 7th sense. <br />
<br />
Yes there's this and that and what you've heard and what you've seen. There's traffic, pollution, crime, gangs, drugs, sex, trannys, celebs, glitz, glam, gutters, an abundance of tacos, wildlife stalking the streets and all the rest. and God is there so much flannel. if L.A. Blew up right now, the sky would be blanketed in various crossing patterns of unmatching colors. But its the west and it's gravitational pull is amazing. After two weeks out here, it only takes one moment every day to make me wonder why anyone would want to live back in NYC. I said it would be a recurring theme. <br />
<br />
I'll be fine anywhere. I don't worry about losing attachments or abandoning loved ones. I should hope anyone who calls me their friend understands my need to disappear. Nor do I mistake friendly new acquaintances for lifelong relationships. We, like every moment, like every tick, like every breeze, like every performance, are in passing. It all come and goes. I find comfort in this. And like Cat Stevens sang "...there's a lot of that anywhere" <br />
<br />
But in the L.A theres this shade of dusk light, a hinted emerald green caught between the fired sky above and shadowed mountains below. It lasts only as long as it takes the sun to sink in the smog polluted haze behind the hills that hold the fading streaks of hell so gently. From the bluff we watch a master at work, painting a watercolor right before our eyes. We see our fair dome fade to black vacuum, all within a few degrees and just beyond the neon purple hills' haze holds a thriving sky. Every sunset is more beautiful than the rest. As the day fades into night, so do I.Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403430544786635324.post-60300133578773179362011-02-10T14:47:00.001-06:002023-12-04T11:30:31.492-06:00New York I love you but you're dragging me downFor eight years I have called New York City Home and I really do mean home. I have lived so many different lives, known so many different people, and in many respects have been many different people myself. The actor, the singer, the intern, the manager, the bartender, the director, the boyfriend, the asshole, the musician, the yes sir, the boss, the student, the funny man, the mess, the best. I received my schooling in the ways of the world in the one city where the entire world is located. I loved and hated every second. Something was missing. Something has always been missing. Something unexplainable. Something out there...<br />
<br />
<br />
I found different parties, hobbies, jobs, girls and performances to temporarily fill that void but none of them stuck. Every night would end with the same lost feeling, though the location and company often switched. Every night with that same void that has been there since I can remember. It's a part of me, taking the place of the other part that is missing. The part I am still hoping to find. In some ways it may boil down to the eternal "Who am I?" Cliche. But Cliches are cliches for a reason. When every supposed night of your life turns out exactly the same, hungover in one way or another, year after year, then you begin to question if what you are doing is sane. I was not.<br />
<br />
In New York You really can be whoever you want. No matter how silly or distant you may feel one day there is comfort in knowing the next person you walk past is equally if not more so confused and messed up. OR, more than likely, wearing roller blades and dressed like a vampire. And no one gives a second glance. So go ahead, pick your nose or your wedgie or swear out loud because whoever notices has seen something much more calmly bizarre already on they're way to work that day. For all of my complaints, my voids, I can only ever say I was living the dream. I have experienced every 5 Star and no star restaurant, I've hung with the subtly famous, bought Governers a beer, movie premiers, private parties, heart to heart talks with the homeless. I've crashed in to so many different lives and parties and hearts. I have had the honor to grace hundreds of stages, venues and halls. I have conquered roles and failed epicly in the public eye with reviews in the Times and others to prove it. I have experienced. I have lived. <br />
<br />
It's the Chaos that kept me in New York for so long. My blessing and curse is the ability to live in the moment, drop whatever preconceived plan I think I may have had and just say "Yes" to the very next adventure.<br />
<br />
"Mark, want to go to a lesbian glitter party?"<br />
<br />
Yes<br />
<br />
"Mark, want to take a week off from work and reconnect with your estranged, rich uncle who wants to put you up in the Pierre hotel and party like a rockstar?"<br />
<br />
Yes<br />
<br />
"Mark, want to drive to Canada?"<br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
The experiences are numerous because all you ever have to do is Say "Yes". And Yes always, always leads somewhere. When Every night is potentially the biggest, craziest night of your life you would be a fool to say No. With so many friends in both the performing arts and Bar business amongst other lively professions, there is always a party to go somewhere. You either feel guilty for not going or guilty the next day FOR going. I was sick of living in that guilt. I will recount my full time in NYC soon, but I still need to process it all.<br />
<br />
Then one night in November, I got the call. I was laying in bed restless at 4 am, staying in and trying to be a good boy. The tenor of ambulances, traffic, voices on the stoop and all of the other wonderful potpourri of continuous metallic ramble that makeup the NYC soundtrack were living in the back of my head. Why do we put up with it? My cell vibrated. It was A.J. Calling from L.A. He is my best friend from Fordham University that I never see since he moved out to Cali 3 years ago to attend USC grad for film. For the past year A.J. Has been prepping for his thesis film, a documentary about A 4,000 mile walk across America from L.A. To Boston and interviewing people about Same Sex marriage. I had a sneaking feeling in my gut for a long time that I would somehow be involved. After the normal "Hi, how are things, what's up, how's the weather etc..." the tone in A.J.s voice changed and the conversation went a little something like this:<br />
<br />
AJ - Mark, I really need someone to drive the supply car. Feb 1st is getting closer and closer and I can't imagine doing this without you. Your my best friend and I need you.<br />
<br />
Silence...<br />
<br />
Me - well...I mean I'm flattered. Of course I would love to but...I don't know. Things are picking up here, and...Let me get my shit in order and see if this is even possible. I'd have to quit my job, my new comedy show, my friends, my apartment...let me call you back Friday. <br />
<br />
AJ - Ok. No pressure. I just would love you to be here.<br />
<br />
I hung up the phone, stared out my 7th story Columbia dorm RA suite I was illegally subletting and took in my life, all of the excuses I had just lifted. A weight fell from my shoulders and a smile came across my face. I called back 5 minutes later and simply said the only thing I Knew how to say any more...<br />
<br />
Yes<br />
<br />
<a href="http://roadlesstravelledfilm.com"></a>Mark Metivierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02429460904874152173noreply@blogger.com0