Sweat Your Prayers - That'll Give You Something to Write About
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Image by Gerhard Lipold from Pixabay
My Sweet Home Away From Home - On the Road # 32, Part 1
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It is absolutely excruciating to read this particular letter of my DIY booktour/roadtrip in January 2006. I had just come to Santa Cruz due to Lili, the Rock Lady, who I had met on the ferry. I ended up staying in Santa Cruz for 6 months, and it was one helluva ride.
This is one instance where I let my romantic side interfere with my common sense and my intuition.
Before making a decision on where to live, I stayed a night in the main house where Janna and Fred lived. I woke up in the middle of the night with this oppressive feeling of some dark and heavy bearing down on me. I could hardly breathe and it scared the shit out of me.
That was all I needed to know. But I moved in anyway…
Big mistake. Huge. I did end up in a good place, but it was a crazy ride to get there.
Hey y'all,
I really meant to live in Santa Cruz, close to the beach.
I’d seen a place with deer running through the yard and the roommates - Meg and Christopher - were about my age and in a similar phase in life. They were very cool.
There was lots of light, and I liked the old farmhouse feel of the place - even if the landlord was an alcoholic, lived on the property, and sat in his oversize pick-up with his elbow jutting out aggressively, drinking cans of Bud and glowering at the house.
To make matters worse, he had relatives wringing their hands in anticipation of his death so they could get their hands on his money.
“He (the landlord) has been mad at me ever since I turned down his marriage proposal,” said Meg, as she showed me around. “Maybe he’ll fall in love with you, and I’ll be off the hook.”
Given that he was eighty-plus and had stalker tendencies, I sure hoped not.
I really liked Christopher and Meg, and had pretty much decided I’d love to live with them.
But I went ahead and came to see this place that was fifteen miles into the Santa Cruz mountains because I had an appointment.
And I keep my appointments.
“When you see James Dean on the left, take a right on Alameda…” said Janna over the phone.
I hadn’t met her yet, so my first impression was from her voice.
If caramel had a voice, it would be Janna's.
Her accent, breathiness, and tone of voice pronunciation bring to mind a flow of smooth, thick liquid sugar.
Oddly enough, her girl's girl voice is easy to listen to and she has many fascinating stories.
In her late fifties with three grown sons out of the house, she is not in my phase in life.
After driving through the Redwoods on Highway 9, I saw the mural of James Dean on the side of the Brookdale Lodge - which is supposed to be haunted - on the left and made an immediate right on Alameda…
I really meant to live where the action was, but I could not resist this place...
As I write this, I’m sitting here on a mini-stage built within a half-circle of redwoods.
I smell smoke coming from the stove, burning wood from the main house. The house was built in 1907 from virgin redwood, crammed with antiques, photos, artwork, and knick knacks.
Out back is a pool built during the 1920’s, I suspect.
On the north/northwest side of the pool is the cabana with bathroom and laundry room.
On the west side is the studio where Erin lives and behind that is the “secret garden.”
On the south-central side is the main house, behind it the cathedral-stage of redwoods, and behind that…is my space.
I live in a tiny house on the north/northeast side of the property, but I get the most sun. (This was before tiny houses were a thing.)
It’s uphill from the creek, and groove on the constant trickle of water - it's like those meditation tapes that people play when they need to chill.
On one side of my place is the chicken and rabbit coop.
The rooster is lazy about cockling in the morning, and all the chickens are in cages except for Cadbury, the breeder mama bunny.
She got out and still runs free, much to the chagrin of Erin Rose and Janna.
There is a light breeze blowing, the wind chimes are gently tinkling a harmony.
I also hear the chirps, peeps, and cackles of birds as beams of golden glow are streaking through the woods to light up this place nestled in the woods.
“We took out all the Douglas firs when we first moved in,” said Janna. “And the redwoods just shot up from there.”
“This place is very magical,” said Travis, Janna’s eldest son.
He wasn’t exaggerating; I feel like I’m living inside a fairy tale.
Welcome to my home away from home.
I live in the “playhouse” of this property, but I call it the hobbit house.
It’s the size of a shoebox, not even big enough for a double bed, but it gives me autonomy.
There is a huge window Janna recycled from an old schoolhouse on the south side of the building and when I walk out the door, one of the first things I see is that cathedral of redwoods kitty corner from my slice of personal space.
I have to go to the main house to go to the bathroom and use the kitchen, but I have the run of the property with my rent.
“This place was like Sleeping Beauty’s castle,” Janna said. when she described the forgotten cabin that had been empty for years at the time she and Fred bought it.
The people who live here could also be characters out of a novel.
“We’re an eccentric family,” Janna said.
First, allow me to introduce Erin Rose, the caretaker/adoptee who posted the ad.
Photographer, recluse, keeper of Cooper, the ugly cat, and would-be catcher of Cadbury, the runaway rabbit, Erin Rose made his new home here a few years ago when Christian, Janna's second son, told him his mom could use some help.
He has since become a part of the family and Janna’s best friend.
Sometimes it's difficult to tell who takes care of who, or what.
“People actually got offended when I said Chief likes white animals a little too much…(Yum!) in the ad,” he said.
He’d also described chickens, roosters, numerous rabbits (including Cadbury, the breeder), along with Chief, a big white dog, and Cooper, his road-scrapping tomcat.
To be continued…Remember Cooper, the road-scrapping tomcat.
Peace,
Montgomery
Remembering Miss Corky
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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Years ago, during my vagabond bartender phase, I worked in New Orleans for a very colorful and flamboyant family, the Karnos.
They were the last of the "old-time French Quarter" families who used to run all the restaurants and bars in the Quarter with an iron fist.
As one of my sister bartenders put it: “This is not a democracy.”
In their heyday the Karnos owned some legendary burlesque strip clubs, but by the time I got there, they ran a few bars on Bourbon street and talked a lot about those days.
For instance, Blaze Starr (a redheaded burlesque stripper who had had an affair with Earl Kemp Long) had worked for them.
Miss Billie, my boss, had come there at 16 from Mississippi and worked as a stripper and lured Mr. Nick (who was deceased by the time I got there) away from his first wife and kids to marry her and have a second family. The Karno daughters taught their friends how to twirl tassels from their nipples when they were children.
The kind of salacious scandalousness typical of sinful cities like New Orleans, but one of their human treasures was Miss Corky.
She was one of their general managers, and had worked for the Karnos for decades.
According to the story, which I heard directly from Miss Corky, she had started working for the Karnos when Mr. Nick "bought" her from one of the other families.
Bought her?
"Yeah," she said. "He paid my boss to fire me, so he could hire me. Nobody stole employees back in those days."
Miss Corky was one of the first people in the country to undergo male to female transsexual (as it was called then) surgery. She had always presented as a woman, what used to be known as a transvestite.
She must have had a vivid reputation – which is no small achievement in the French Quarter in New Orleans in the late 60’s. She had managed a strip club when Mr. Nick heard about her, “bought” her, so she then managed the Karno strip clubs.
There was a reason Mr. Nick went to that much trouble. Miss Corky was good for business because she was formidable, a truly unforgettable human being.
Miss Corky was always “dressed” as they said in New Orleans. No casual wear for that woman, every day she donned cute dresses with matching accessories of shoes, jewelry, color-coordinated tights or panty hose (no matter how hot and humid it was), her hair always done, and her make-up immaculate.
She was a vision.
She stood over 6 feet tall, had skinny legs, and busty in a way that comes from blessings of the gods of silicone.
Her wit was razor sharp and faster than lightning.
On one day, when Miss Corky looked particularly dazzling, a bartender was terrifically impressed.
“I love your dress, Miss Corky! How much did that cost?”
“About 200 blow jobs,” Miss Corky replied without missing a beat, and a toss of her head.
Maybe it was all those years managing strip clubs, but she had a crude sense of humor, and nothing was off limits. And I mean nothing.
She often pulled up her dress to show off “these lips” of her vagina. I think my mouth dropped the first time I saw her do that, while the bar manager and head bartender laughed.
She had a biting tongue if you pissed her off, and didn’t suffer fools at all, much less gladly. With that wit, Miss Corky blasted the egos of the weak, the unstable, and the addicted who thought they could put one past her.
The bar industry has always had its share of alcoholics, whose addictions get the better of them to the point that they aren’t employable. And in a city like New Orleans, the bar industry has more than its fair share.
Anyway, John was a pretty nice guy, and had been a bartender for a long time. But he had a horrible drinking problem, and couldn’t seem to work sober. He often showed up drunk, and drank while on the job.
Anyway, one day, Miss Corky called him out on it, and John tried to deny it. In response, Miss Corky put her finger in his “soda,” licked it, and immediately tasted the vodka.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”
Needless to say, John lost his job that day.
Miss Corky was tougher than hell, yet very compassionate - depending on what the situation called for, and frankly, if she liked you.
She often got in my face for being so introverted, and told me I needed to get myself out there and enjoy myself.
“You really need to get with the program, honey. As Auntie Mame always said: ‘Live! Live!’”
So I took her advice. Of course, I did.
When the time came for me to move on, I gave notice. On my last night Miss Corky patted my shoulder and smiled.
“You’re going to miss me once you’re gone, won’t you? I bet you’ll tell stories about me.”
She certainly got that right.
Miss Corky commanded respect. They really don’t make them like that anymore.
I’m sure she’s dead by now. She was in her 60’s when I was knew her in the late 90’s.
But if she’s not, I’ll bet she’s still a glory.
Didjeridu Magic - Now There is Something to Write About!
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InDidjInUs2019
It was love at first sight. Or first sound, really. The first time I heard the primal drone of a didjeridu, I was at Esalen in Big Sur. The Wednesday night jam was a weekly event amongst the tubs where the spa was enclosed.
The sacrifice in the view of the cliffs over the Pacific Ocean were more than compensated for with incredible acoustics.
Somehow a didjeridu, a saxophone, and a trumpet made an effective and peculiar trio. But it was the didjeridu that did it for me. The mysterious tones of the didjeridu played into the amplifier of a clawfoot tub soared through the chamber, and I was hooked.
InDidjInUs 2019 - Ondrej Smeykal
That was before the didj player did his rounds for a sound healing up our chakras. I had never experienced music that could be felt, physically felt as the musician played it around me.
Then I was really hooked.
Every time a didjeridu was played, I got excited.
The best New Year’s Eve I ever had, a didj was played as we approached midnight. Even though the headlining band was playing on the top floor, I knew I was in the right place to call in the New Year.
InDidjInUs 2019 - Lewis Burns on didj with dancer Adam and singer Jamie
I especially love to dance to the didj. That tone brings out something buried deep in me. I move in a more thorough, embodied way that gets to all my parts. It’s catharsis in its purest form.
Beloved is one of the more beloved music festivals around Oregon, focusing on sacred music and higher consciousness. It’s lush and decadent, and very Arabian Nights with its exotic trappings. I went one year and had tickets to go to the next.
Then I heard about InDidjInUs a few years ago.
I couldn’t believe there was a gathering centered around the didjeridu. The thought of 4 days of non-stop didjeridu music made my mouth water.
Everybody loves Mama Emma!
The website and Facebook page was so vague, yet so specific, I wondered if it was only for didjeridu players, not didjeridu listeners or didjeridu dancers.
It also seemed that there was some kind of struggle going on about the values of this gathering. One man made very clear that they were not about a typical “festival” party atmosphere, and they’d appreciate it if the festival partiers would go to Beloved instead.
Beloved was on the same weekend.
I asked on the Facebook page if dancing listeners were able to come, or if this was only for didjeridu musicians. Ycats (Stacy spelled backwards) answered that a dancing audience was most welcome.
I didn’t hesitate. I gave away my tickets to Beloved and went to InDidjInus. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.
That first InDidjInUs, I went to sleep and woke up to the vibrating drones of didj being played somewhere near. My energy field shifted during that time, and my time there was a profound experience in healing.
I knew I loved didjeridu in music. I had no idea how diverse didjeridu could be when it came to making music.
But one of the most surprising benefits to making such a sudden switch was the genuine sense of community that InDidjInUs provided.
A lot of festivals focus on “community” and “tribe” and “getting woke” and whatever else you can think of that sounds transcendent and cool.
But this group really embodies the essence of community - with the good and the bad, especially when it comes to figuring out conflicts and the fallout that entails. Most of these people I only see once a year in the community that gathers for InDidjInUs.
I just finished my 5th InDidjInUs, and this year was the best one yet. Again, I was in need of healing. Having space when I needed it, and community when I needed connection was crucial, and then there were the various jams going on as well as the stage performances.
Anyway, I included some short clips of the amazing and gorgeous music I enjoyed this past weekend.
And if that’s not something worth writing about, I don’t know what is.
The Camel Who Passed Through the Eye of the Needle - On the Road #31
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Image byManuela_BurkhalterfromPixabay
This particular letter from my email journal of the DIY booktour/roadtrip in 2005/2006 has nothing to do with that trip. Right after I had landed in Santa Cruz, my godfather, Bill Demetree, passed away. He was a very pivotal figure in my life, so much that I was compelled to write about him to my community in Juneau, Alaska who had never known him. Same thing with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in the fall of 2005, I felt like a piece of my soul had broken off. Anybody who cares to read about that, click HERE.
Other than that, enjoy this ode to one of the great humans of my life, who inspired me to always remember the high road in the decisions I make in my life.
Hey y'all,
I remember a few years ago, in that first year after 9/11, when many were paralyzed by fear of travel and becoming the tragic victim of a terrorist attack. Of course, the press did their part in to keep it that way, and a friend of my mother's came straight out and said it.
"I'm tired of being scared."
"Don't be afraid of life," said Mr. Bill Demetree in his usual, soft-spoken way.
Isn't it funny how the truly wise man gives himself such a quiet presentation?
The world lost a great man today.
It seems like on my epic booktour/roadtrip, even death is a part of the journey...
I've been struggling to find the right way to describe Mr. Demetree. He was one of those old family friends - only by lack of blood are not a member of the family - who are so close.
He was extremely supportive and loyal to my mother during some of the worst times of her life – the divorce from my father, the years she took care of Mimi (my grandmother) after her stroke, and of course, these last ten years after my mother's aneurysm.
Mr. and Mrs. Demetree were always there.
Mr. Demetree prayed every day for Mom during the weeks she had been in a coma for weeks. We didn't know if she would live, die, or suffer some awful purgatory between life and death.
Mr. and Mrs. Demetree were there with us regularly, at the hospital. My memories of that time are unclear, but I’m pretty sure he kept vigil with us on the day of her surgery.
In these times when there are many who speak of doing the right thing, Mr. Demetree was the man who actually did.
Deeply religious in his Catholic faith, and with an integrity not even the devil himself could question, we felt confident that the spiritual connections of Mr. Demetree would carry some weight.
He was in business with my father and grandfather, and later my brother. Oddly enough, I think it was through business that Mr. Demetree came into our lives. Yet beyond business, he was also a friend.
Anybody who knows the men in my family would agree that they made strange bedfellows to be sure.
But one thing that struck me about Mr. Demetree was the balance he managed between standing up for his beliefs, speaking out for doing what's right, alongside an attitude of non-judgment for those who listened to his advice, yet did not take it. He maintained his relationships with those who chose to live differently than he.
The roles he played - business partner, friend, and even counselor, he was a man who led through action not word, always setting the highest example of dignity, honor, and integrity.
There's a saying that they don't make them like that, anymore...and frankly why the hell not?
Those of us who had the privilege of knowing Mr. Demetree...let those seeds planted by his example grow in our minds, hearts, and souls.
Let us become better people for the experience of having known a such a splendid human being.
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven."
Said by: Jesus Christ, Source: The Bible. I don't know which book or verse, but I remember that adage clearly from memories of Catholic School.
Personally, I always thought that was harsh. But if there is a rich man who will, that man is Mr. Demetree.
It has been many years since I've considered myself a Catholic, but I have never considered Mr. Demetree to be anyone other than my Godfather.
He will be missed.
Montgomery
PS. And yes, I'll be there for the funeral.
Craigslist New Year's Eve, Part 2 - On the Road #30
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Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay
Alicia was exactly what you would expect from a woman who had built her social life around the Internet and who was not a total psycho-freak.
She was a kind, warm, sweet woman, and so shy it hurt. I could easily see her being petrified in any social occasion where she would have to step forth and put herself out there.
"I got hooked on chat rooms back when you had to pay for them," she said. "My credit card bill was at least 300 bucks a month because of it."
And that was when Alicia met her best friend, David - the guy who wouldn’t stop messaging her until she met him for a drink.
David was the only good-looking man in the room, not that handsomeness did him any good. On paper, he seemed all right. He was an artist and a carpenter.
But anger emanated off of him in waves. I was uncomfortable being in the same room as David, and if others hadn’t been there, I would have made my excuses and left.
In short, his story was such that David had been married twice and begat three kids upon his wives by the age of thirty-six. He was in the throes of an ugly divorce from his second wife.
“David was stupid with that one,” Alicia piped up. “They had problems from the first week on.”
And here’s the kicker. He met her through Match.com.
I never met someone who actually married somebody they met on a dating site.
(Remember this was New Year’s Eve, calling in 2006. Online dating was fast becoming the norm, but it wasn’t yet.)
So why did David marry the Nightmare on Match.com?
He had no problem answering my question.
"She had perfect tits," he said. "And cute freckles."
He said that with a straight face and his bestie, Alicia, backed him up.
"She fit his pre-conceived idea of what he thought he wanted," said Alicia.
So why did Freckles & Tits marry David?
"Biological clock," said David.
David suspected that his soon-to-be-second-ex-wife was about to become a lesbian.
"She had a friend who looked like a lesbian and Freckles & Tits swore she wasn't," he continued. "But now she's hanging out with another who also looks like a lesbian.
David paused.
“After New Year's I'm not drinking and I'm not having sex anymore."
In this room of motley strangers, everybody looked at David like he was nuts. I thought it was the first sane thing he’d said all night.
"I need to heal from all this," said David. "This month I decided that Jesus really is my lord and savior and to let him into my heart.”
Oh hell. Never mind.
"You won't heal if you don't have sex," said Alicia to David, the voice of reason that David lacked.
To the rest of us, she explained further.
"The problem with David is that he can't find girls who can separate sex and love, especially with him. They take one look at him and peg him as the boyfriend type."
I wonder if David would have fallen for Alicia if she hadn’t been so motherly. On the other hand, Alicia was pretty matronly. Since perfect tits and cute freckles were enough of an incentive to ignore problems coming out of the gate and actually GET MARRIED, I doubt David had the sense to be attracted to depth and character.
And then there was the man of the hour...our host, Mike.
When I later told this story to a friend, she asked me if Mike had been attractive.
"No.”
No, Mike was anything but attractive. He had a vague resemblance to Mitch McConnell.
To be more exact, Mike had no chin, a prissy mouth that he pursed throughout the night, a doughy face, and the soft formless body of a man who took no advantage of the outdoors that Colorado was famous for.
But his lack of good looks paled in comparison to Mike’s personality. Bitter, rude, unpleasant, pompous – I could go on and on. But the truly sad part was that Mike had no idea how disagreeable he was.
In the original Craigslist post, Mike had said several friends were coming over. And there were no friends there because…drum roll…he didn’t have any. I’m pretty sure the date that had fallen through was also a fiction.
After a couple of hours, I could understand why. I knew I never wanted to be around Mike again long before we called in the New Year 2006.
According to Mike, he had no friends after 5 1/2 years in Denver due to the manipulations of his evil ex-wife.
A woman he had been married to for only nine months, she'd tried to kill him twice – according to Mike - and had used him as part of an immigration fraud scam she had going on with her family.
I don’t know how this happened, but I ended up telling a story to this group – the first chapter of Ella Bandita.
Mike extrapolated from that.
"You want inspiration?" he sneered. "Generations of dysfunction and evil run in my ex-wife's family."
That was a good moment to smile and nod.
Mike also claimed more horrible first dates than everyone in the room combined. He was also an aficionado of which internet sources were good, and which ones were awful.
It was a shock to my system being in a room full of people whose main source of social interaction was through a computer.
David and Mike exchanged horror stories of shrewish con-women, heifers, bitches, dykes, and other undesirable and highly suspect females they had met while looking for love online.
Mike really wanted to talk about his psycho marriage and his ugly divorce all night, and he interrupted conversations that were enjoyable to do so.
He also had this beagle, Dakota, that was so hungry for affectionate attention, it was pitiful.
"Love me," the dog’s eyes pleaded as Dakota humped people's feet. "Please..."
"Dakota!" Mike would shout. "Dakota!"
“He has a foot fetish,” Mike would explain to his guests, two of whom were allergic to dogs.
The courtesy of putting the dog away didn’t occur to Mike. And Dakota wouldn’t listen in his relentless search for someone at that party to take him away.
Because I’m pretty sure that’s what that dog wanted.
Eventually, midnight happened. We called in the New Year, and all of us hot-hoofed it out of that house by quarter past twelve.
By the time I got back to my hotel, it was around 1am – that had been a long, sober drive back. The bars were pouring out and people were cheering, hooting, and hollering Happy New Year in giddy, drunken joy.
Lesson learned.
If I’m ever in an unfamiliar city for New Year’s where I don’t know anybody, I’m going to bite the bullet, down 2 or 3 shots of tequila and party down.
Because that was the weirdest New Year’s Eve of my life.
Peace,
Montgomery
To read Part 1 of Craigslist New Year’s Eve, click HERE.
Craigslist New Year's Eve, Part 1 - On the Road #30
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Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay
This post is from my booktour/roadtrip I did in 2005-2006. This New Year’s Eve called in 2006, and stands in my memory as the weirdest New Year’s of my life. It made me miss the Craigslist of its glory days because this kind of thing isn’t even possible anymore.
Enjoy!
Hey y'all,
Happy New Year!
And I must say, this New Year's Eve was... different...interesting...I learned a lot.
And I walked away grateful for all kinds of reasons.
I took a break from the road trip to fly back to Florida from Denver and spend X-mas with la familia. Then, I came back to Colorado and did some snowboarding and waited for my college friend's kid brother to fix the Beast.
I should have driven on.
The kid brother's garage was closed on the 31st - it being a party holiday and all - and my friend already had plans.
I should have driven to Albuquerque anyway and joined Jason for the "Crazy Sexy" Spankfest he went to.
Y'all from GGC, you remember Jason, don't you? Well, he's been a naughty boy...
Instead, I was in Denver with nothing to do.
Since I've become addicted to Craigslist - you can find everything from a ride to a place to live to a job to used furniture to a date to a one-night stand to...
I looked under "Strictly Platonic" for something to do on New Year's Eve.
One post sounded promising...
"Singles New Year's Eve Party!"
According to the post, the guy throwing the party said his date fell through at the last minute.
He also claimed that several friends were coming over.
After a screening process - because "after all, I’m inviting strangers to my house" - this guy was generous to include all of us in the greater Denver area without plans for New Year's to come ring it in with him.
Well, that definitely applied to me and it didn’t sound too complicated.
I was to BYOB, along with a snack. And of course, “Dress to Impress. No Jeans.”
It sounded all right. So after a brief and simple screening, I was officially invited. My host’s name was Mike.
Obviously, the party was safe. I am I'm writing this email after the fact, and I can't do that from the bottom of a ditch.
But…ahem…
When I walked into his house, the “several friends” and anybody else from the greater Denver area with no plans added up to 6 people.3 men and 3 women, including me.
Nobody wore jeans.
Nobody knew each other either.
Except for the two best friends who came together - David and Alicia - everybody in that room was a stranger to each other.
And we had all connected through Craigslist.
Even the best friends had met through the Internet years before in the days of Instant Messaging.
"I kept sending her instant messages because I thought she sounded like somebody I wanted to know," said David about Alicia.
"I got tired of ignoring him," said Alicia about David. "So finally I answered. That night we met for drinks and we've been best friends ever since."
"We also became pot buddies," said David. "Now neither of us smokes pot, but we like each other anyway."
So this was how my evening started. I don’t remember when exactly I thought to myself: “Oh shit!”
Disclaimer: Everybody except my host (more on him later) were decent people. Extremely lonely, but decent.
Rick was a divorced construction worker.
He was a classic good ole boy with two daughters, and the kind of guy who would struggle to build his own social circle.
As is often the case with men like him, his ex-wife probably had taken care of the social stuff, and he was left to fend for himself without the social skills after the divorce. According to Rick, his plans had fallen through and he simply wanted something to do.
Rick was a sweet guy and I think he was sweet on Ginger.
Ginger was a looker.
Slender, with died black hair that she wore quite well with her fair skin and blue eyes, Ginger was the only one in that room dressed to impress. She wore a slinky black cocktail dress and sexy, strappy, stiletto-heeled sandals, with rhinestone thing-ma-jigs that may have doubled as clasps.
On top of everything else, she had a southern accent. I think she was from South Carolina. She was a pretty southern belle who, I suspect, made all her decisions based on men.
And I’m pretty sure she lied about her age.
Oh, and Ginger wasn’t shy. I think she made all the men blush when we talked about our youthful years.
"When I was sixteen, I was into my church and into my boyfriend," she said. "I fucked him silly!"
Then she laughed boisterously.
Ginger had been divorced a year and a half. I think she made it all right in the divorce, at least where practicality was concerned. She had two daughters, a big house, and generous alimony.
And apparently, Ginger had no group of friends. She drove an hour and a half down to Denver from Fort Collins just to attend this little soiree.
I was grateful for Ginger’s presence there. She was the only lively personality in that room. And without her, the night would have been rough.
She was also very open.
Her divorce must have been emotionally bitter. Because Ginger shared that she decided older men were the way to go after being married to someone her age.
"I start at 40 and go up from there," said Ginger. "I'm twenty eight."
Like I said, I’m pretty sure she lied about her age. I’d put her around 35.
She had a boyfriend, but he was a long-distance beau who lived in my state – Anchorage to be precise.
Where do y’all think she met him?
On Craigslist. Where else?
I think Ginger will be okay. She had the rare talent of laughing out loud with lots of gusto at jokes that aren’t funny. She probably makes a great date, no matter how dull her man may be.
(Craigslist New Year’s Eve will be continued on Monday, October 5th)
Peace,
Montgomery
Dumb Ass Luck for a Happy Holiday Season - On the Road #29
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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Hey y'all,
Yeehaw! Did Santa surprise my stocking this year!
For somebody who has not planned squat for a book tour, things sure keep falling into my lap, and all I have to say to La Fortuna is Grazie, Senora! Grazie, grazie, grazie!!!
But I get ahead of myself...
I'm in Colorado, the state of my college alma mater, to visit a college friend, and she threw her Christmas party right after I got here.
Since Kelly is immersed in the corporate world of computer software and telecommunications, she invited many folks she knew from work.
One of them, Anne, had an organization of sixty people, if you include all the contractors - which she didn't.
With a thick Scottish accent and a blunt, fiery attitude, Anne is known as an aggressive leader that scares the shit out of most people in her company.
"She's the devil," Kelly said.
Anne is often heard yelling at the top of her lungs in her office. However, unlike a lot of slave-driving bosses, her staff has the option of yelling back, which they often do.
But to reward them for all their hard work and being such good sports about tolerating and dishing out verbal abuse, she does something to surprise her team every quarter. And this quarter, she surprised them with me.
Gotta love those holiday parties, when everybody's half drunk and networking. She and her lover showed up "in drag," in that they were dressed up for the holidays. I told her what I was doing and she suggested I come and do a storytelling with her group.
"I haven't come up with anything fun for them to do this quarter," she slurred. "But you have to make it a team-building experience. How much do you charge?"
Given that I'd been doing this for free, plus book sales, I didn't really know how to answer that. I remembered Brett telling me that beginning storytellers charge $75 and told her that.
She pssshawed that.
"You need a manager, honey," she said. "I was thinking more like $500."
To tell a story? Why sure, I would love to.
Okay, I had to get a little flexible and make it a team-building experience. And I had to set my ego aside to do it.
I told Chapter four and gave six teams their own set of questions for them to construct a story around it. In other words, a bunch of computer techies had to switch to their right brain and get creative. It wasn't about figuring out what I wrote, they had to make it up.
They did pretty damn good, too. Some of the scenarios they came up with were outrageous.
Whoever thought that being a writer and travelling storyteller could translate into being a "motivational speaker" for a corporation?
If anybody from ODS should see Sarah Carter, Jean Richey, or (I can't believe I'm actually saying this!) Kevin Krein, thank them for me because I just got paid $500 to tell a story and give away 25 books.
And the exercises we did for the Small Group Communications class helped me think up my own.
$500 to tell a story? As far as karma is concerned, I know I deserve it, but still! I definitely wanna do that again!
Merry Christmas!
Montgomery
This excerpt is from my DIY booktour roadtrip journal I emailed to my friends during 2005-2006.
Since this was the holidays, this was at the end of 2005 and I’d been on the road for almost 6 months.
I’d spent a few months in the Alaskan Interior (I lived in Alaska at the time), went back to Juneau for a couple of weeks before heading down into the lower 48, where the book tour was a very different experience.
I was riding high at this time, having a very lucky stop in Ashland right before heading to Colorado. This was every bit as auspicious as the time in Ashland.
If you’d like to read about that experience, here are Parts 1 and 2 of the Fool’s Journey HERE and HERE.
I have such great memories of that time in my life. Especially because it was one of the most challenging and difficult things I’ve ever done.
The Fool's Journey, Part 2 - On the Road # 28
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Hey y’all,
Since Sun and I got a late start from Eugene, we didn’t get far.
Sun suggested we stay the night in Ashland because we’d have a place to crash there - a friend who she had met at EarthDance in September working in his kitchen
She didn’t tell me her “friend” was the Knight of Cups. I also thought she had a girlfriend, but hey! Sexuality is fluid.
Since Sun had made 0 book sales on my behalf, I was agreeable to a free place to stay. I also learned yet another lesson in getting what you pay for, but more on that later.
Again, I don’t regret giving Sun a ride because she had great stories, it was another chapter in this grand adventure, and awesome things would come of it. Just not in the way I thought they would.
Before we went to the Knight of Cups, she also turned me on the luscious Jackson Well Springs, a lovely place to soak and sauna naked at night. I wouldn’t have found this wonderful place without Sun.
She ran into another friend from her time in Taos, and ran off to have tea with him.
Finally we made it to our crashpad and the Knight of Cups.
His name was Matava. I’m pretty sure he named himself. He was originally from New York. But once he had awakened to a higher vibration, Matava donned loose, flowing garments to indicate his enlightenment, and made his living with exotic cuisine and Ayurvedic smart drinks.
I think he was a caterer with a New Age edge.
I had to admit his tea was excellent. But I doubt it made me more intelligent. As far as his healthful cleanse cookies were concerned, they tasted funny - probably because they didn’t have any sugar
Sun and Matava got reacquainted with a lively discussion over the wisdom of human design and Chinese astrology. Matava consistently referred to the Chinese and Western astrological significance of his absent housemate. I don’t remember her name, but she was at least 10 years older than he and owned the house.
“She’s a Fire Horse AND a Scorpio,” he said. “She’s very Scorpio.”
I suspected that meant he’s her lover who pays no rent, and the Fire Horse Scorpio gets pissed off with her errant Knight of Cups on the regular.
And then Sun started disrobing.
Like a lot of Pacific Northwest hippies, Sun dressed in layers of heavy sweaters. As she and Matava animated over all things New Age, Sun took off one heavy sweater after another, along with her leggings and woolen socks until she was down to a t-shirt and loose, flowing skirt and bare feet. She also contorted her body in visually appealing stretches that thrust her ample breasts into the limelight.
When Matava slid down to the ground in a bent-knee crouch, Sun followed suit, with her long skirts making a pretense of modesty. Once they overlapped their big toes and gave each other that look, I knew exactly where this night was going.
But I was exhausted and it was time to crash at the crashpad.
Matava had made up a massage table in the living room for me to sleep on and I was out within minutes.
Unfortunately, exhaustion didn’t render me deaf. The High Priestess, Sun, elevated the Knight of Cups, Matava to the state of the Lovers, and woke up the Fool who had given her a free ride. I was tempted to make some noise to disrupt the high vibration of their coupling, but why?
From what I heard, it sounded rather average.
The next morning, Sun hinted that she'd forgotten how much she liked "Matava's company," with the implication that she could hang in Ashland even though a storm was coming that we would be wise to beat. Then we hit Evo's Cafe. The High Priestess went to the market to replenish the supply of ass-wipes for the Knight of Cups. The Fool checked email and pulled out my tarot deck and started shuffling, wondering how I was going to gracefully extricate myself from this situation.
Upsidedown Temperance asked me for a reading, even though he had no money. One of the eccentric, homeless youth that has found some sanctuary in the most tolerant coffee house in the affluent arty community of Ashland - home to the Shakespeare Festival every summer - took a seat and I gave him a reading, which he interpreted for himself. Once Sebastian had satisfied his need to talk about his neglected talents while he had someone's attention, he left the table after a couple of hints.
A well-preserved, nicely groomed black man with a shaved head and pretty face at the table on my left who had observed the interaction of the reading, started up a conversation. His speech was as refined as his looks, so I gave him a brief rundown of my story and explained that the cards were a gimmick I used to get people's attention to the book. He then asked me what I thought it meant that the cards got people's attention. What did I think people were seeking? Of course, I didn't know.
"They're looking for that third voice," he said.
His name was Amien and he had moved to Ashland from Santa Rosa, California just six months before. At fifty-two, Amien had had many lives, as a professional dancer and an artist, he had designed sets and done the lighting for many productions, and although settled was in chrysalis for his next life incarnation. He encouraged me to do a storytelling, although he preferred philosophy and science fiction. The noise of the cafe distracted him after a couple of minutes, so Amien suggested going by his cottage and doing the storytelling there.
"It's very peaceful, I'll make some tea, and it'll be much better."
Never, never, never go off with strangers, always said my mother, the Empress. You may come across the Devil, maybe even Death, and then what are you going to do?
But I am the Fool, and I am no longer a little girl. Amien gave off a good vibe-ration, my instincts told me it was safe, so I went. Besides, I thought he was gay.
Besides, it is the Fool's nature to trust. Will this step send me careening over the cliff or dancing over the rainbow?
If one doesn't trust, one doesn't get to meet the Magician...or the man who makes things happen.
Amien was a highly talented artist from what I saw of the pieces in the mother in law apartment. After listening to "The Birth of Ella Bandita," he bought two books, offered me his spare bedroom - a good hidey-hole for the Hermit - and said he'd like to throw a party for me.
"We'll make it very nice, very selective," Amien said. "So you will meet the kind of people who can help you."
The best part, it really was no strings. Amien had his libido and his attention distracted by a sweet young thing, half his age, who led him around by the nose...or the head. I provided good conversation, a sympathetic ear, and good counsel.
"It'll be my first soiree," he said.
Ain't it grand how artists support each other?
That night, he introduced me to the Hierophant, who had the mother-in-law apartment he lived in. Melody was a teacher, whose daughter also was a self-published writer. She was also throwing a dinner party that same night, so Amien suggested they coordinate their events and I be the guest storyteller for both parties.
He helped with making up the flyer/invites, thinking up such refinements as "intimate setting," and "light refreshment provided" and a discreet "Books for sale."
The party had a good turn-out, and The Fool got to take a turn as the Star, entertaining the Court with a tale. Emperors, Scholarly Hermits, Lovers, and Empresses made up the audience.
It was grand, but alas not perfect.
As much as the Magician warned the Fool to be selective, I gave a flyer to a woman whose Tower had come crashing down. He had met her and was surprised that I gave her an invite.
"She strikes me as somebody with a Ramona complex," Amien said. "I suspect she's missing parts."
He shrugged and said it'll be what it'll be, but the Magician called it. Just as the Star had told the climax to an audience of enthralled Courtiers, and was forty-five seconds away from the end, a Queen in the audience interrupted.
"There's somebody out in the cold."
Turning around there was the woman of the fallen Tower peeking in the windows, wanting to be let in. The Fool did, and gathering my wits, finished the tale. Honestly, it was more disruptive to the audience than it was to me.
An hour later, the Fool realized what a mistake inviting the fallen Tower to the party.
"That's why I consider myself legitimately schizophrenic," she hooted in laughter at her own joke.
The Magician gave the Fool many a pointed look until there was an opportunity to generously volunteer a ride in the Chariot of my Brown Beast.
It occurred to me that I shouldn't be compassionate at the expense of others. After all, this sanctuary was home to the gracious Hierophant and Magician.
They didn't ask for this.
"I told you so," said Amien as soon as I came back from giving Julia a ride home.
Other than that, The Fool took a step off the cliff and ended up with the World in his pocket.
I love Ashland!!!!
Peace,
Montgomery
The Fool's Journey, Part 1 - On the Road # 27
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Hey y'all,
I love being on the road.
As exhausting as it is, I absolutely fucking love being on the road. There's something about throwing oneself in the path of chance...
Not to mention that being on the road is sweet living at its most distilled. All the sour, bitter, and not so tasty parts are culled from the nectar every time I start up the Beast and ride into the sunset.
Even if there is no sunset, I always feel more and more amazing the further and further I get away from that place where not so wonderful things have happened.
Is it also immature?
Of course it is.
But to throw oneself in the path of chance is to be the Eternal Fool at the start of one’s journey in the Tarot, leaving myself open to the domino effect of things as they happen.
After Thanksgiving, I left Eugene to go back to Seattle to the bazaar managed by an eighty year old clown at the former elementary school.
This time it was a waste of time and money, not to mention that Marcia (pronounced Mar-See-Yaa) Moonstar just had to come by my booth to bitch and complain every chance she got.
Even though she had the benefits of my boom box playing music in her booth because I didn't have batteries and that was the only outlet in the room, the energy vampire still had more juju to suck out of me.
Mar-SEE-YA Moonstar was a wannabe High Priestess, while she was truly Upside Down Justice because she was also the one making money.
The unfairness of it all got to me. I had to get out of there. I got in the Chariot of my Beast by 2 in the PM, left the flea market early and drove to Portland.
As soon as I left the city limits of Seattle, I felt lighter and breathed easier. It felt great to cut short the unnecessary suffering of a bad decision and just move on.
The flea market idea wasn't so great after all...
I'd been hearing about craigslist ever since I got down to the lower forty-eight, and I came up with a crazy idea in regards to rideshare.
"Good at sales and need ride to Denver?" so began my ad.
In a nutshell, I made it clear that anybody who sold my books would get a free ride with no gas money.
I thought what the hell? It's free to post an ad on this site, so what did I have to lose? I didn’t even expect anybody to answer since I put it up at the last minute.
What enterprising salesman-types would be looking for rides to anywhere?
Well, somebody did answer my post. I didn’t get an enterprising salesman type, but I did get Sun. Just imagine my surprise when my post was answered by another Fool on her own Journey.
"I'm in Eugene and am ready to leave right now."
Yet another stop in Eugene to meet my prospective saleswoman eager for a ride free of gas money.
Sun, nee Susan, was born and bred in the farming plains of Iowa. She was a robust blonde with slightly cocked blue eyes.
At twenty-four, Sun was as cosmic a hippie as one who had come of age in the late 60’s. She spent at least a year living naked and homeless in the island wilderness of Kauai. Somehow she ended up there after flunking out of college due to her activism in things that matter.
Sun recommended herself with the claim that in her gypsy travels of joblessness, she often went door to door canvassing for the Sierra Club for the going rate of 50 bucks a day whenever she was broke. So she would likely be comfortable approaching strangers to sell my collection of original fairy tales.
She'd been road-tripping around the West Coast for two months, but was really compelled to keep her promise to her folks in Iowa and return for visit by Christmas. I was heading to Denver, which was on the way more or less, and Sun had a cousin there she could stay with.
Knowing Sun made me fully understand why those who are just passing through are looked at sideways by those who have put down roots, paid their dues, and accepted the benefits of staying in one place.
The nomadic don't invest in any one town, therefore how can they be trusted?
Back in Homer at the beginning of this DIY book tour/road trip, Lia, the woman who let me sleep in the Beast on her property had a saying:
“We are all interconnected.”
How true. And there's nothing quite like giving a stranger a ride in good faith a road trip to prove it.
If nothing else, Sun had great stories and was fascinating to talk to.
Our first hours on the road, Sun showed me a picture of her girlfriend, her “baby” as she called her, and told me all about the paradise of living naked in Kauai.
She had been part of a gaggle of transients who moved their encampment from place to place around the wilderness of Kauai to avoid getting busted and kicked off.
She said it was glorious to l to eat mangoes from trees and not need any money until the day some guy showed up who took a dislike to her. He nudged and nudged until she was exiled from the village.
Even Paradise has a dark underbelly.
But as far as our original agreement was concerned, I often had to remind Sun to talk me up whenever we made a pit stop.
"Oh...yeah..." said Sun every time.
Unfortunately, my enterprising saleswoman had the attention span of a two year old.
She didn’t sell one book. But I don’t regret giving her a ride because the risk of giving cosmic hippie Sun a ride to Denver lead to other more wonderful things.
More to come on my Fool’s Journey in the next email.
Peace,
Mana
The Day After Thanksgiving - On the Road #26
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Hey y'all,
So how was everybody's Turkey Day?
Mine is happening sans turkey...and the day after I might add. The official day of Thanksgiving was rather boring, but the day before was so epic it hardly mattered.
Eugene, Oregon is a town that loves its hippies and its disaffected, which is a beautiful thing, but it takes a little getting used to.
The oddest characters approach you with the comfortable expectation that they will be received.
My day started out at the coffee house and I was shuffling tarot cards, obsessively asking the same questions over and over again, because I just needed to make sure everything was going to go okay, dammit!
Jay approached me, asking about playing with tarot cards, saying that he preferred gin.
Wearing dirty blue jeans, and layers of tops, his pink wrap-around scarf stood out. His blue eyes had the faraway glaze of mental illness, and conversing with him did nothing to dispel that impression.
But he hadn't always been that way...
When I told Jay I was born and raised in Florida, he told me that he'd been in graduate school in Tallahassee, had driven with his wife to Key West then up the Gulf of Mexico to Acapulco and Mexico City. He said he didn't finish his grad studies in something scientific that I couldn't grasp because "the draft came calling."
He joined the Peace Corps and went to Africa instead.
"That experience was amazing. Africans are beautiful people."
I didn't ask what happened to bring him to this point, but I gave him a book when I took my leave. I had a hot springs to get to and in the Brown Beast, it would take time to get there.
Several years ago, a wandering hippy named "Gypsy," who I met in Bar Harbor, Maine told me about Cougar Hot Springs outside of Eugene. This was back in my traveling bartender phase, and he suggested I come find him there - if I made it to the West Coast.
"There's a group of us that camp right next to the pools. I'll be there all winter if you need to find me."
Well, I went back to New Orleans instead, but I’d never forgotten the name and location of Cougar Hot Springs. It was almost 10 years later by the time I got there, and in that time, things had changed.
The forest service had driven the hippies away from the springs and started to charge for the use of the pools.
"It really is much better," said Don as he pointed to the lush forest around us. "Years ago, this was all mudslide from people trampling around here and they camped right at the pools."
And probably staked their claim too, making it uncomfortable for those who just wanted to use it for a couple of hours.
That was the way I felt when I first got there.
The approach was amazing, walking through the lush green of the Oregon rainforest, with moss covering everything - there was even a tree bent all the way into an upside down U.
I felt like I was walking through an arbor and five minutes later, I arrived at a tier of seven pools descending down the hill.
Each pool was made from rock and soft soapstone, with the hot water pouring out of a small cave to fill the hottest pool at the top, and the water would cool the lower it trickled down.
It was the perfect interference by man on nature, harmonizing with the Douglas firs towering above the tier of pools, and the ferns and other rushes embracing the rock pools.
As I approached the pools, I saw a woman getting herself and her son dressed, while her husband and daughter stayed in the third pool lower from the top two.
In the upper pools were three men and one woman. The woman was rolled down into a Gollum-style crouch on one of the rocks, cackling as she was talking to her boyfriend, who was in the water.
Another bearded gnome was in the upper most part of the pool, right next to the stream of hot water coming out, while the third was grinding soapstone into powder, which he then used as a cleanser and exfoliant when he had enough.
I undressed and went to the top pool, where the vibe was not friendly.
It got much friendlier after the bearded gnome and the bather left the pool and a new guy, Don, joined the top pool.
He told me all about many other hot springs I could go to in Oregon and Nevada. Then Mike joined the pool. He was at least sixty years old and lean as a whippet from living simply in remote surroundings and riding a seventies Schwinn bike everywhere he went.
A younger man got in the pool, but he did not join us. With his head down, his curly hair and beard shielded most of his face; and he had a womanish bulge to his belly and double-A cup breasts.
He was intent on having his own deeply personal experience of the springs, and certainly had no use for the petty social animals chattering away and fucking up his moment.
He lay face down right in front of the stream of hot water with his arms dangling above his head, came up to smoke pot for air, and then lay on the rocks, and made the "OM" sound in his meditation as he cooled on the rock with a cougar face carved into it.
When he'd had enough of the November air chilling his skin, he dove face first into the shock of hot water and then lay in the hot water with his legs above his head, as he hummed "OM" for enlightenment while he lay in the pool of his own world and provided background noise for the next hour.
In the course of conversation, I told Mike and Don what I was doing - driving around telling stories and selling the book - and Mike twinkled.
"Oh! Are you going to tell us a story!"
"It wouldn't be the first time somebody told a story in these here springs," said Don.
What? Tell a story amongst a bunch of naked people - ages twenty-something to sixty-plus - taking a soak in the middle of the woods?
Ummm....okay.
Everybody should love what they do this much.
Dirt and Donna joined us while I was about five minutes into telling of the birth of Ella Bandita. And they were the ones who bought a book.
"I figured you was an author," said Dirt. "Nobody talks like that."
"His name is really Dave," said Donna, his wife. "But he insists on telling everybody he's Dirt."
I felt rejuvenated when I left the springs and came back to the hostel. The hostel in Eugene is the only one I've ever seen that puts limits on what you can eat.
Vegetarian household...no meat allowed.
But it has an awesome down-home vibe with a fireplace and an automatic social scene with some good folks. The Eugene hostel is a true haven for the solitary traveler and a homing point for Eugene locals that stop by to visit, whether they had once stayed there or not.
The effect is eclectic.
Scott is a thirty-seven year old local who stayed there at the same time I did for unknown reasons. With a crew-cut, Carrhart overalls, and a tie-dye, he was a bizarre hybrid. He had the walk of a good ole boy and the talk of a...well, you'll see.
"I love Eugene," he said. "It's very magical."
When I told him about my day at the springs, that was when he let his woo-woo out as he piled up the rest of the firewood into the fire.
"I get offended by hippies and their naive view of the springs," he said. "There was a time when that space wasn't cared for and when you don't take care of sacred space, bad spirits will come in and bad things will happen."
He then proceeded to tell me about a time when he and a magician friend of his had gone to the springs after taking some "very pure acid" and the spirit of a young woman entered his friend's body.
"You have no idea how crazy it is to see your buddy suddenly become a woman. She had been raped seven times and killed there, and she'd been trapped at the springs ever since because the bad spirits wouldn't let her go. But we got her out of there that night."
In spite of his rather nasty ghost story, I was still so relaxed that I fell asleep in front of the fire.
Yet I could still hear Scott tell Charley, a twenty-four year old that wanted to travel with his savings, to make his money now so he could afford to have his essence distilled to a pill when the spiritual technology was advanced enough, and then be put in a cloned version of his youthful self.
"I want to enjoy my life while I'm still young and beautiful," said Charley. "And you're telling me that travel is a waste of time and money?"
"Absolutely!" said the would-be mystic.
I woke up to see the appalled facial expression of Adrienne - one of the girls in my room, as she sat in front of the remains of the fire.
Scott had gotten on the phone for a round of sexy talk with his Canadian girlfriend and he lacked the discretion, or consideration, to seek out some privacy.
"You've been a baaaaddd girl," crooned Scott into the phone. "Papa's gonna give you a spanking. Oh yeah he will."
I figured it was time to go to bed.
Anyway, today's the day we have our animal-friendly (since we aren't going to eat any) potluck Thanksgiving. My donation?
Wine, of course, and wood. Scott used up all of it.
Peace,
Montgomery
A Day in the Merchant's Circus - On the Road #25
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Hey y'all,
My first flea market was really cool.
In the U-district in Seattle, they have a decent outdoors Farmer's Market set up, and a flea market was tagged on just a few weeks ago inside (most important at this time of year) at the University Heights Community Center.
The building began life as an elementary school, complete with old wooden floors and wide staircases with fat banisters. It was only the fourth week-end they've done it, so there were about ten vendors there.
I set up my booth up in the middle of the old hallway right in front of the middle entrance, with the side entrances equidistant from me. In other words, prime location and the cherry was the huge windows right behind me to provide plenty of natural lighting.
I draped my silk saris to disguise the long wooden bench delinquents and class clowns once sat on before visiting the dreaded principal, and completed my Arabian Nights transformation by draping the roll-up camp table that would hold my assortment of books with a purple silk special from India, via Chicago.
Laying out my blanket and pillows for coziness, I set up my sign also offering FREE Tarot card reading with book purchase. Shuffling my cards, I was ready for business.
Millie Buchanan, the lady in charge of the flea market shebang, came tottering up the stairs in complete clown regalia. Over the phone, I could tell she was elderly, and as soon as I saw her pulling herself up the stairs, I knew I was right.
Well into her eighties, Millie had taken the time to don a yellow and red costume, with matching face paint and red afro wig. She had a little horn that she tooted on a regular basis as she visited around the market, helping people any way she could, and shaking hands with the kiddies.
She also had a booth of her own set up and was determined to make the flea market a success. She even offered to make flyers for me and hand them out if I gave her a week's notice next time I came.
She was the sweetest of the characters I met that day.
Right across from me was Marcia (pronounced Mar-see-Yaa) Moonstar, performance poet and mystic (wanna-be, I suspect), and she was very gracious at my direct competition for her readings.
Besides cards and poetry books and CD's of techno keyboard pop with her reading her poetry, she offered tarot and astrology readings starting at $10 a pop (when you consider that my books are $10 and the reading is complimentary, where do you think the better deal is?).
I was dismayed that we were set up in direct competition; but as I said, she was gracious and gently suggested I charge for my readings.
I'm a writer, not a psychic.
Marcia (pronounced Mar-see-Yaa) had all kinds of questions about what I was doing and I made the mistake of telling her about the Rasmuson Foundation grant. Because after that, it was an act of will to get her to leave me and my booth alone.
One thing I’ve learned thus far is that all it takes is one person to monopolize my space and other, would be book-buyers and readers are kept away. But she offered several times to have me listen to her read her goddess re-emergence poetry with the picture of her in full regalia on the back.
"I wear a Raven's mask with my cloak when I perform in public," she said, as I looked at her in a moon cloak draping her head and glittery scepter.
Ah, what the hell.
People want their dreams and Mar-see-Yaa is no exception. She just didn't want to stay put in her booth. We did a trade of items, and for once I came out the winner, for she was excited her work would be going to Alaska.
You're a sitting duck when you set yourself up like I did. I guess a long table keeps the invasive at bay, but me sitting on my blanket with Tarot cards, saris, and vivid sign attracts the attention of...certain types of people.
In the middle of the day, a tall thin man with silver hair and a turquoise western doo-dad that substitutes for a necktie came up, and looking down on me, asked in a booming voice:
"Do you read fortunes?"
"Only if you buy my book," I said.
"Well have I got something to sell you!"
“Oh shit,” I thought, as I politely stated that I was the one who paid for a booth.
But he continued.
"I'm a mystic, and an artist, and a musician, and a preacher!" He boomed. "Is what you're selling cool?"
"What I'm selling is beyond cool," I replied.
"Beyond Cool! Now that's something for the lost youth to think about. You must be an Enlightened Master Mistress!"
"If you insist."
"I came in to take care of a call to nature! I'll be right back!"
And of course, he was. After some carrying on, he picked up the book and went to "Preacher Man and the Golden Pedestal," complimented me on my descriptive style, found my preacher offensive, and offered to quote extensive scripture to me if I had a minute.
"Well, I am working."
He offered to keep it short, but he still kept potential people away until he left my booth ten minutes later. And that was after telling me that he was Romeo to a gorgeous, yet misguided saleslady.
It was a day.
It wasn't even a busy day, but I sold nine books.
And I had to work for it.
Peace,
Montgomery
The Quixotic Quest of the Great Queer Hope II - Tantric Shitshow, Part 1
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Image by ktphotography from Pixabay
Hey y’all,
[The beginning of this letter is the blog right after this one.]
I thought: “What the hell. I’ve never been to Thailand, and what better way to celebrate my freedom after ending a stifling, oppressive relationship than to go to SE Asia and start that journey with a Tantra adventure.”
So I signed right up.
This is the part where I should have done some research.
From the information I found online, the Masters – Mantak Chia (Tao) and Charles Muir (Tantra) - seemed really male, really straight, and much older than you would expect. Mantak Chia is 75 or 76, and Charles Muir just turned 73.
In other words, these men were of a different generation who never had to consider LGBTQ inclusiveness. Hell, they never even had to consider women – queer or straight – beyond making sure they had orgasms.
There was also no mention of Dr. Sierra Levy or a space for Queer Tantra in the description.
This would have been a good time to ask those questions. But I didn’t. And again, that’s on me.
So I get here.
This workshop was on Mantak Chia’s turf of Tao Garden Health Spa and Resort outside Chiang Mai. The grounds are lush and beautiful, there are yin/yang symbols everywhere, and there are all kinds of eastern healing modalities offered in the clinic and in the spa, some of which you can’t find anywhere else in the world, and it seems he keeps making up new treatments.
The environment there is far more Taoist than Tantric, but that’s ok. As complex as Taoist sexuality is, I learned just enough from Mantak Chia that I’m interested and curious to learn more - even if he was prone to saying “wagina” instead of “vagina,” especially when tired and his accent got so thick I hardly understood him. But I preferred his “wagina” to the excessive “yoni” talk that happened during Charles Muir’s lessons.
We’re not Hindu. Yoni coming out of an American mouth sounds pretentious. So pretty please, with sugar on top, call our bits the sacred cunt already. It’s more honest, not to mention sexier.
I finally ran into Sierra, who said she didn’t know how many people had signed up who were queer. Kind of odd for the head of queer tantra.
She said she had put the word out on Facebook and “other groups,” so maybe some would show up. She had heard there were “a few queers” here.
She also said that there would be an announcement drawing attention to her as the queer pod leader, and that’s how we would find each other.
People came to this workshop from all over the world - some couples, but mostly singles - of all ages and sizes, many between mid-twenties to early forties, and most seemed straight.
Although I suspect there were several bisexual women here, most of them were from Europe, a place where discretion is the better part of valor. From my experience, European lesbians/bisexuals are perfectly content to hide in plain sight.
And when you’re in a workshop that’s very patriarchal in its outlook, that’s probably a better way to be.
Oh, and both of the “Masters” in this Workshop on blissful, ecstatic love had a harem mentality when it came to women.
All this became more obvious every day.
So does this sound like the kind of Tantra workshop a queer woman would feel awesome in?
Umm….yeah…not. Dr. Sierra Levy did not tell me any of this.
Once I got here, Sierra told me a lot more. This was a biannual workshop – the 4th, and rumored to be the last “Masters.” She had been here for the 2nd and 3rd workshop, and said that both times had totally sucked.
“It’s so heterosexist,” she said. “I’m here to give support, and to make this a safe space for queers to be. The Masters need to evolve and change their language.”
And Sierra was here to make that happen.
She didn’t tell me any of that either when I had met her.
She had a particular hard-on for Charles Muir, the Master of Neo-Tantra.
Sierra had taken his course in California several years ago. When it came time for the men and women to separate to learn about yoni (cunt, goddammit!) and lingam (you mean cock?) massage, she piped up that she preferred to massage yonis .(cunts!)
Sierra insisted she’d rather join the men and Charles Muir refused to let her do it. He said she could buy his books and videos on how to massage the yoni.
(How about divine pussy? That has a nice ring.)
But Sierra Levy could not join the men.
“Well, what if I pack? Could I join the men then?” Sierra told me she asked him. “Charles Muir didn’t even know what I was talking about.”
Well, no. Why would he? Never mind the generational difference, most men who are mighty comfortable in their male privilege don’t take the time to learn the ways and verbiage of queer women.
Anyway, Dr. Sierra Levy, naturopath and acupuncturist has been pissed off at Charles Muir ever since.
Who knows how long she’s been a thorn in his side? She was determined to get him to evolve, and change his language to spill his secrets to a queer audience.
“I would rather die than change my language!” Charles Muir protested.
What’s mystifying to me is how many times she has taken his workshops. Again, this was her 3rd out of 4 Meeting of the Masters Workshop. And that doesn’t include the California workshop she took several years ago.
For what it’s worth, Sierra has a kind heart and I think she meant well. And to give credit where it’s due, the Sierra’s of this world do their part to bring about social change. They squawk long and loud, and eventually people have to listen, even if they only do so in the hope they’ll shut up.
Which she didn’t.
However, I did not knowingly or willingly sign up to be a part of her Quixotic Quest as the Great Queer Hope in the world of Neo-Tantra and Sexual Tao.
Oh, and by the way, she lacked the skills to be supportive to the one and only queer who showed up on her recommendation, much less be this stellar hero of the Great Queer Hope.
This was one of those scenarios where somebody wants to be a part of something so they can feel important and special, not for what they have to give to others.
If you’ve read this far, this is only the beginning.
Peace,
Mana
PS: Click HERE if you’d like to read the beginning of this letter.
Lone Wolf and Ships Passing in the Night
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Photo by me
Hey y’all,
Traveling is bringing out the lone wolf in me.
I’m getting into the groove of that dance of solitude and connection. Being with myself and crossing paths with other travelers - usually solo female travelers – where we come together for a brief friendship of time spent in a place that’s not our home.
I’ve been very lucky with the people I’ve met. So much that I found myself craving alone time.
Anyway, when I was in Chiang Rai I spent practically all my time alone, with only the briefest of exchanges since I got here. And I’m good with it.
Of course, it helped that I knew my solitude came with an expiration date because I had a workshop right afterwards. Shared experience is always fodder for meeting and bonding with people.
The last few days I was in Chiang Mai, I buddied around at night with Nadia, who I met the day I checked out of my Thailand base, Hollanda Montri Guesthouse, run by Kiwi Dean and the Widow Su.
Nadia was the one who stared a conversation with me because I was tossing a 5 baht coin in my chronic game of yes or no answers to be found in heads or tails.
“Heads or tails? Which one do you want?”
“Depends on the question I’m asking.”
That’s how the convo started between us.
Nadia’s another seasoned traveler like Kip. Before she married a couple of years ago, she carved out 6 months a year for travel.
Nadia is what I’d call a soft extrovert. She wasn’t boisterous or overpowering, but she definitely knew very well how to meet people easily and connect.
When she met me for dinner in the old city, she had no problem asking the tattooed French guy if we could join him on a bamboo platform where another guy was snoozing in the hammock.
The Frenchman had lived in Thailand for years. Nadia asked him if he’d ever been a scuba dive instructor, which he said he had.
“Whenever I meet a Frenchman with tattoos, it seems they are always dive instructors.”
When the guy in the hammock woke up, she asked him what he’d been dreaming about.
He hadn’t been dreaming at all. He had been sleeping off a hangover.
I was ready for some alone time, or it may have even been her jetlag, but I found Nadia draining when I first met her.
But I squashed it down because she was company before I went to Chiang Rai, and who knows when I’d have a travel buddy to hang out with again?
Nadia was a very lovely woman. She was in Chiang Mai for a Thai massage course and to do her own thing, while her husband goes snowboarding in the Alps. They live in Holland.
Of course, Nadia was very interesting. I learned about a place I really want to go to from her.
“Get there before it’s discovered and becomes expensive,” she said. “It will happen because it is literally an oasis. My husband and I were there for our honeymoon 2 years ago, and it was magical.”
I just might go there next fall. And in the interests of keeping the secret a little longer, I’m not going to say where it is.
I saw Nadia every night from the time I met her until my last night in Chiang Mai when I circled the moat going around the old city of Chiang Mai.
It was so good to do that alone, even the tight spots of navigating near the old wall with vehicles coming at me. I felt light and free walking those 7+ kilometres.
I think Nadia was on the same page. She stayed at the guesthouse on the river and probably got her conversation needs met with Dean.
It’s such a gift to meet unusual, independent people while traveling.
As Natasha had said, traveling takes out a lot of stuff and distills the essence of who a person is. Then on top of that, solo female travelers crossing paths with other solo female travelers is its own magic.
It’s been a relief, this experience of connecting with kindred spirits.
But at the same time, there’s a compromise to spending time with another. Nadia had a very different rhythm than I, and sometimes it tested my patience to alter my pace to meet hers, and I’m not free to go where my feet lead me.
In some ways, that’s a blessing because I do things I wouldn’t have due to another’s influence. In other ways, I was kind of hungry for it – to simply do my own thing when I wanted as I wanted.
Those few days in Chiang Rai were pretty sweet. I got a good recharge before being around others again.
Traveling is getting me back in touch with my inner lone wolf. I met remarkable women in that workshop and made some beautiful new friends. Yet there were also plenty of times when I needed to go be by myself for a while. Usually to write, but often times simply just to be.
It’s a dance of solitude and connection, the alone time of being with one’s self and connecting with other beings for a brief friendship of two ships passing in the night, the horn sounding in the air as we all go our separate ways.
Most of these women I’ll probably never see again.
Peace,
Mana
The Saving Grace of Good Friends Yet Again, and Great Ideas From Total Strangers - On the Road #24
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Hey y'all,
I’ve been hanging out with good friends in Bellingham and as nice as it is, not eventful, exciting, or eccentric enough to write about.
Isn't it odd how that works?
I also my first official event in the lower forty-eight Wednesday night at Village Books in Bellingham, and it was my biggest audience yet.
But I must say, I'm fast losing patience with the brick and mortar bookstores. So far, it's a lot of effort with very little reward. This was a gig set up by one of my best friends while I was careening around the Interior.
Just the kind of thing that keeps me motivated, you know? But being fortified with the support of Susan and Markis, I was going to feel like a rock star even if I fell flat on my face.
Village Books is an awesome venue, the best I've come across for doing my thing because they have a corner space with podium and folding chairs with funky brick columns and whatnot.
It has a very underground vibe to it.
They have readings every night, which brings with it a built in audience. I think that there were plenty of people who just come to the readings because it's free entertainment.
As the storytelling progressed, I had people showing up consistently, which felt gratifying.
Especially since they listened and didn't walk out...but I don't know, maybe I offended many with the concept of God and the Devil playing backgammon in Purgatory every Friday night.
Susan was the only one who laughed at all, and she even laughed in the right spots, but nobody joined in.
Except for her, I felt like I was surrounded by Puritans. Giving me the stare with their mouths clamped shut. Susan said the energy felt tense out there when I went into "Divorce of Vice and Virtue."
You would think Bellingham wouldn't be so uptight, but apparently not.
When I announced that the books were $9.95 and I'd be happy to sign copies, there was a mass exodus.
But two ladies, who had come in separately and on time, stayed behind.
Thank God I've had the experiences I've had - everything from selling spaghetti dinner tickets in my Catholic schoolgirl uniform (when I was a kid, that would be appalling now), to tending bar, to being a hiking guide for the illustrious Gastineau Guiding.
This event was the equivalent of the busload tourists who did NOT like me, and I did a couple of things any guide with a lick of sense would do.
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
First, I focused only on the friendly faces in the audience. Then plowed ahead and let if roll off me like water off a duck's back.
I mean why torture myself? Besides my reward was quality, not quantity.
The two women who stayed behind and chatted with me and my friends both bought books, and it's always a reward to sell to total strangers because they got it because they liked what I did.
One of them, a introverted, young woman named Laura - one of those types who really takes in the world around them without giving anything away - gave me a great suggestion which I think might save my ass.
Because two books an event really sucks and I have 700 more books to move.
While chatting, I mentioned the complimentary tarot card reading I offered for those who bought books at certain fairs and festivals and she asked me if I really read tarot cards.
I said yeah, I make no pretensions to being a psychic, it was just a gimmick I did to sell the book.
Then she said she read tarot cards too, and traveled around the east coast doing readings at flea markets.
Flea markets? The light bulb went on in my head.
“Are the booths expensive?” I asked her.
“No,” she said. “They're really cheap.”
Doing my research on the Internet, there are flea markets everywhere!
And the rent is cheap....
I'll be at my first one in Seattle manana. Wish me luck!
Peace,
Montgomery
This letter was from a DIY booktour/roadtrip I did in 2005-2006. I had forgotten about this event, and how that went until I re-read this. Wow. Memories!
Hobo Punks Remembered - On the Road #22
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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
In my last On the Road blog here, I mentioned at the end that I had interviewed a few hobo punks who I had met while traveling in Alaska with the potential to freelance an article to the Anchorage Press.
It is one of my most painful regrets of that road trip that I didn’t follow through on that. Because I did interview these people. Their stories were incredible, and they deserved to be known for that.
I probably had a gnarly case of road fatigue.
For all the excitement and adventure of the unknown and this odyssey, it was exhausting to pack up the Beast and move from town to town, where I didn’t have any roots or emotional investment.
I had it in me to interview them. Then that was it.
The main people I interviewed, Derrick and Kylie Greene (names changed for privacy) had settled down in Anchorage. At the time that I had met them, they had a young son, and Kiley was pregnant with their second child.
This was in the autumn of 2005. In the 90’s, there was an exodus of teenagers out of the homes into the streets. The core of the homeless teens were – and still are - those who left dangerous family environments and those who had gotten kicked out of their homes, usually for coming out as gay.
But then there were those who came from safe homes and were simply restless and probably didn’t fit in with the mainsteam conventional culture from which they came.
If I remember correctly, Kylie had been a hobo punk longer than Derrick. I think he had hit the road around 16 or 17, whereas she had been on the road from the time she was 13 or 14.
Originally from Louisiana, she said her mother and sister worried sick about her, and often begged her to come home, which she would never do no matter how dangerous life on the streets was.
“I remember one time me and a couple friends found a squat (an abandoned, empty building) as a place to crash. One night, these older homeless bums came in and saw us. We overheard them talking about how they were going to kill us to claim the space.”
Kylie shuddered as she remembered, and shook her head.
“We were so scared.”
Kylie and Derrick met through the network of hobo punks that hit the road. Both had a lot to say about the network of homeless youth on the road, how they managed with no money and very few resources beyond each other.
Safety happens in numbers. Hobo punks know this.
They talked about connecting with the Rainbow family, the nomadic tribe that travels from National Park to National Forest year round, when they needed more resources or the security that comes with a group.
They talked about hitchhiking and hopping trains, as the hobos of the Great Depression did to get around. They talked about living in squats, sleeping in encampments, panhandling, and receiving money and food from kind-hearted strangers.
“It gets harder as you get older,” Derrick said.
They also talked about the excessive alcohol and drug use that goes hand-in-glove with that lifestyle.
They talked about Punksgiving, celebrated at the same time as conventional Thanksgiving, and that people traveled from all over to come to it. In fact, I’m pretty sure, it was at a Punksgiving that Kylie and Derrick met.
Image by Ryan McGuire From Pixabay
They showed me a group photo of an early Punksgiving before they married. Everybody in the picture hammed it up. Kylie had her ginger hair in a Mohawk and wore brown overalls, Derrick had his hair slicked back, and I recognized the guy I found in Seward who told me where to find them.
Once they settled down in Anchorage, they’ve been the hosts for Punksgiving. And it was no easy feat for those hobo punks to get to Anchorage from the lower 48 (the rest of the United States, except Hawaii).
That was becoming problematic for them.
Although it was part of their tribal values to open their homes to their hobo punk family, then they’d have far too many people in their house expecting to be able to stay. They’d drink all day, not help with the bills, housework, look for a job, or anything.
And they were in Anchorage in late November, where winter was always well under way.
This honest, humble working class family were especially conscious of the difficulty of this. They were torn between the past and the present and the needs for their future, especially because they had a four-year-old son and Kylie was pregnant again.
“It’s gotten harder as we’ve gotten older,” Derrick said. “It just doesn’t work to keep partying like that and not doing anything.”
“Derrick became a journeyman at his job this year,” Kylie continued. “And things have just changed for us. We don’t know how much longer we can continue to host Punksgiving because it causes a lot of problems.”
I asked them if they missed their former way of life. They both nodded.
“Yeah,” Kylie said. “But it was just getting too hard. People don’t want to help you out so much when you’re not so young and cute anymore. It’s harder to get rides and money and food and stuff that you just need.”
Both of them were only 24-25 years of age at the time of my interview.
In the long run, Derrick and Kylie were the fortunate ones.
Life on the road is hard, especially the way they lived it. It’s a way of life that the young and restless still engage in. Several years ago, I met a young woman who had lost her leg in an injury where she was hopping a train.
Image by lannyboy89 From Pixabay
