Natural Fibers

I used to wear mostly natural fibers. Then along came Patagonia and other outdoor outfitters with some great artificial (usually polyester) products: fleece, Synchilla, Capilene, warm lightweight coats, polyester shirts for travel that could be rolled up in a backpack, and look wrinkle-free when worn. I’ve been running in cold months wearing Maxit tights and long-sleeved top, a type of polypropelene, keeps you amazingly warm – just one layer.

Last month I went into a natural fiber store in Victoria, the sparkling capitol of Vancouver Island. I’d just bought a great Patagonia jacket. Started talking to the guy running the store, he said it really feels different to wear cotton and wool (and silk and hemp) and no clothing made from oil. He looked at my new coat and said, “Yeah, that’s made out of recycled bottles.” When he said it I thought, cool, it’s great to make spiffy stuff out of trash. Of course a little later I thought, maybe I don’t want to be wearing a coat made from plastic, no matter how elegantly tailored. He got me thinking about going back to natural fibers.

The thing that clinched it was discovering clothing made of Merino wool. I started with running socks. I’d tried for years to have cotton running socks, but almost everything was Coolmax or other oil-derived fabric. These Merino socks felt good. Noticeable difference from Coolmax. Two companies have wonderful selections of Merino wool apparel:

Smartwool

https://www.smartwool.com/default.cfm

I got Smartwool socks (they’re actually 70/30 wool/nylon). I got the Smartwool Microweight 100% wool bottom tights and a long-sleeved Microweight crew for running and let me tell you, does it feel better. My body breathes, I’m more in tune with the surroundings. Wool doesn’t smell bad like artificial fabrics.

Tights, $64.95

Tights

Crew shirt, $79.95

Crew shirt

Icebreaker

Icebreaker has an elegant line of products (in spite of the very weird cover photo on their home page). They have testimonials from athletes who wear Merino wool clothing in various combos (there are 3 weights) climbing Everest, on kayak trips, wet or dry, hot or cold; 100% wool in various combos works wonders. How great, natural fibers out-performing artificial. I got one lightweight long-sleeved shirt for next-to-skin, the Skin 200 long-sleeve crew, $69.95

https://www.icebreaker.com/our-clothing/DisplayProduct.aspx?p=51

and as well what is the best single piece of clothing I’ve run across in years, the Sport 320 Wing Zip, $118.95 https://www.icebreaker.com/our-clothing/DisplayProduct.aspx?p=156

I’ve been wearing this whenever it’s cold, over a cotton or silk t-shirt, or if colder, over the lightweight merino wool shirt. It’s light, it keeps you warm, it breathes, feels good, looks great.

Grind Your Own Oats

This elegant little Italian grain grinder has three hardened steel rollers that flatten grain for making flakes or crack it for making hot cereal or granola. I’d never had fresh oats before, that is, you’re taking the whole oat grain (groat), and crushing and flaking it just before cooking. Nutty, delicious oatmeal, the flavor of the whole grain just released. Bruce Atkey showed me this, just after he gave me a breakfast bowl of fresh oatmeal along with flax seeds, shredded coconut, a little hemp oil for flavor, and brown sugar. Chrome plated steel, 9″H. Clamps to any surface up to 2″ thick. $79.95.

https://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=1145&itemType=PRODUCT&RS=1&keyword=grinder

Roast Your Own Coffee

I read an article on roasting your own coffee in an old popcorn popper, one of which we had lying around ready to go to the goodwill. Bought some green coffee beans from Capulin Coffee (“Natural Hand Crafted Shade Grown Traditionally Dried Jungle Coffee”):

https://www.capulincoffee.com, roasted them and voilá, discovered the secret to good coffee: freshly roasted. If you use a popcorn popper it should be the type that has air blowing in around the bottom so the beans circulate. For instructions see: https://coffeetea.about.com/library/weekly/aa031903popcorn.htm.

Fiddle with it to get the roast you want. Like the article said, once you roast your own, you’ll never buy roasted coffee beans again.

I just don’t seem to have time to do a third of the stuff I want to do. Especially when I’m on, as I thankfully am now after 3 weeks of the doldrums. I wish I could be more stable, but stability cards I was not dealt with. I have these wonderful high periods when the energy seems to flow and I do the creative stuff, but — ugh! — the lows.

Blog vs. Newsletter

Communicating via my blog has kind of turned things around in my communications-obsessed mind. I used to get the word out to people via the physically printed word — books mainly, but also flyers, newsletters, pamphlets, booklets. I was just getting the whole production + printing press = something-you-hold-in-hand-and-read process down, when along came computers. And then the web. Yeow! Whole new world.

Most of my contemporaries (high school class of 1952) never breached the gap. Too daunting to learn alone, too difficult to get the right teachers. They’ve just given up (and seem to get along fine in the non-computer world). I was (I guess) lucky. Books used to be put together in physical “flats” with strips of type pasted down with wax, then shipped off to the printers. When that entire formidable industry shifted to computer-generated electronic files, I had to start over, and hired Rick Gordon, an experienced MacIntosh wizard of book production. As the years have gone by I’ve watched and learned from Rick. He helps me out every day with my digital struggles, putting me way ahead of where I’d be on my own. Digital communication has become an important part of my life and thoughts. So I’m struggling these days as to how much time to spend working on my blog and on my GIMME SHELTER newsletters.

Ulp! Have I said this before? Hey, it’s not that your memory turns to mush as you get older, it’s that there’s only so much storage room in your brain and when you get to be about 60, the filing cabinet is full. Stuff gets jettisoned. (I know there are some of you who will feel better knowing this.)

It’s a beautiful day with blue skies and cotton-ey clouds after a bunch of grey wet days and I’m going to spend an hour or so getting this out.

Music

When I was 19, I lived half the time in Santa Cruz. We were surfers before rubber suits. One of my surfer friends, Rod Lundquist, rented a shack for $10 a month and had it fitted out with a record player and big speakers. He favored Beethoven, Wagner, Schubert, and at high volume. Here was this 20-year-old surfer’s shack, 10-foot (balsa) surfboards all over the yard, and — bum-bum-ba-bum, Beethoven’s Fifth, would rock the neighborhood. I started listening to Beethoven symphonies, and I’d forgotten about his music until I recently got the soundtrack to Immortal Beloved. I’m not big on “excerpts,” but this is wonderful. I played it in my truck driving over the mountain and cranked the volume up to max. Whew! The landscape came alive as the music filled my veins. It was like rediscovering an old guru. The Allegretto from the 7th Symphony gave me chills, I remember — 50 years ago (ulp!) — listening to it on a grey day in Santa Cruz, watching a group of nuns walk down the beach from our beachside apartment window.

Rod Lundquist at his surfer’s shack

Recent CD’s: Unclassified, by Robert Randolph and the Family Band; A Bothered Mind by R. L. Burnside. Also: Five Guys Walk Into a Bar, a 4-CD set of Rod Stewart and the Faces, early rough and raw rock and roll, a lot of it live.

Random Pics From My Sept-Oct Trip to

Vancouver Island and Vicinity

In the interest of speed, I’m not naming all the builders or locations here.

The Wreckage, antique and what-have-you store run by Norma Baillie, built of driftwood and beach stuff in Ucluelet, west side of Vancouver island, by Bruce Atkey in the ’70s

Woodshed by Peter Buckland

Left: Black bear on beach (eyeing me); Right: Does a bear shit in the woods? Yes, especially during berry season. Larger pile about 10-11″ across.

Stairway in woods by Lloyd House. Triangular (in cross-section) steps split from cedar, so that the risers are at at the right angle when they’re nailed to the steep rails.

Lloyd House’s dog, Choo, followed me out into the woods on this split-cedar walkway. I heard this chattering noise — a squirrel up in the tree. As Choo approached he ran down the tree, tantalizingly almost within Choo’s reach and tormented him. I’m sure he was saying, in squirrel-eze, you dumb mutt, give it your best shot, blah-blah. I mean it was a lot of noise. Then he jumped on the walkway right in front of Choo, who bounded off after him through the trees — unsuccessfully.

It was a day-long (free) musical tribute to the guy who ran the Family Dog concerts in San Francisco in the ’60s. Bill Graham was a businessman, but Chet Helms was a believer, and his concerts at the Avalon Ballroom were the best. I got into the city late, no way I could handle 8 hours of spectating, parked my truck a mile away from the park and rode my bike to Speedway Meadows, You could hear the music from blocks away. As I got closer I recognized Summertime Blues, being played by Blue Cheer, probably the first heavy metal group (1966), so named, fueled, and inspired by Augustus Stanley Owsley’s LSD-of-the-year of the same name. Sounded pretty much the same.

It was a pretty big crowd, although I doubt it was the 20,000 the SF Chronicle said this morning. A bright beautiful day, I was ready for a knockout event, like the two ’67 classics, the Monterey Pop Fesitival, and The Human Be-in. Well, not exactly. First impression: it was a party, and a lot of these people had been here 40 years before. There’s something touching about the 60-year-olds who are still shakin’ it, even if no longer with the fluidity and grace of youth. The next band up was Paul Kantner and the Jefferson Starship, with two female singers doing the Grace Slick bits. Pretty bad, I’m afraid, and while I’m at it, here are examples of what I thought was sub-standard ’60s music — even though I usually feel like a ’60s cheerleader.

I never really liked the Jefferson Airplane. I didn’t care for — forgive me, folks — the Greatful Dead. B-o-r-i-n-g, for the most part. And this will get me in even more trouble, I never thought much of Janis Joplin as a singer. In fact I liked Big Brother and The Holding Company better before she came along. As the music went on, and people danced, I was a little bummed by the realization that there’s an audience for mediocrity. Wavy Gravy started emceeing, and again pardon the observation, I know his heart’s in the right place, but his shtick is stale and annoying. Is there anyone I haven’t antagonized by now?

So I started shooting pictures. There were great costumes, lots of happy mellow people just glad to be in the park on a beautiful day, surrounded by like-minded. The music went on, a different group every 20 minutes. Then fiddler David LaFlamme and his wife Lynda and their group It’s A Beautiful Day came on and things notched up to a whole different level. A tight great band. Whooo-wee! Maybe this was going to be OK.

Then 90-year-old (!) folksinger Faith Petric with her acoustic guitar charmed everyone. Talk about good vibes. People stopped boogieing, and swayed back and forth, smiling. The remnants of Quicksilver Messenger Service were OK, fronted by Dino Valente’s son, in white suit no less. Canned Heat did a rockin’ version of Amphetamine Annie (“…amphetamine kills…”) Nick Gravenites has still got it, doing Goodnight Irene, very fine. Blues singer Annie Sampson, with a powerhouse voice, did It’s All Over Baby Blue. Oh yes. Good music was making the day. Squid B. Viscous, a bunch of guys from the old Steve Miller Band, were great. The tight band Zero played as the sun went down. When asked how many people were native San Franciscans, half the audience raised their hands. When I left, the grass was just about spotless; people had gone around picking up cigarette butts and trash. Money was collected in white 5-gallon plastic buckets. Rock and roll.

I got back a week ago from a 4 week trip to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, shooting photos for a new book on builders. I was originally working on a book on North American builders in general, but when I saw the quality and uniqueness of a bunch of Canadian (and ex-patriate American) builders in and around Vancouver Island, it was obvious there was a book in this relatively small geographical area. I covered 2700 miles in my camper-rigged Toyota Tacoma 4×4 truck (a fabulous vehicle in all ways!)

I went 40 miles in an open boat up the coast from Tofino with Bruce (aka Bruno) Atkey, legendary coastal builder (and surfer). We went in Bruce’s 17’ open aluminum boat with 65hp Johnson 3-cylinder, 2-stroke, manual start outboard along with Bruce’s long-time buddy Wayne Vliet, also a builder and surfer (and musician).

We photographed cabins in the woods, a surfers’ beach shack,

Rancho Bueno

and a post and beam Indian-style long house, all made entirely of local cedar from the woods or beaches. A couple of the buildings were built entirely of split cedar, including 8’ long boards, split studs, rafters, and roof shakes. We saw bears, killer whales, and bald-headed eagles; we went surfing 3 days (hit it at 6-8’ one day!); we took a hot sauna, then jumped in the cold ocean water.

Driftwood chair by Bruce

And that was just the start.

After a week on the west coast, with its dynamic energy (the tourist hordes are less in other-than-summer months), I headed over the mountainous middle of Vancouver Island to its east side and to three islands in the Straits of Georgia, the island-filled waterway between Vancouver Island and the west coast of B. C. (more mellow territory), and had a great few weeks there.

Gate of the crow, Hornby Island, B.C.

I came home with about 1700 photos and a mountain of interviews and addresses and things to do and it’s taking me a week to just unravel it all, download and print thumbnail photos, send promised books off, order various stuff I learned about in my travels, and deal with a considerable backlog of publishing business details. Man, if I could just get through the biz stuff faster and have more time for working on books, which is why I got into publishing in the first place. Ooops, am I whining again? I have to admit to myself on occasion that maybe handling all the business crap is why I get to be an independent publisher in this increasingly run-by-committee, conglomeratized, corporate world. (I know a LOT of creative people who’d love nothing better than to create their creations and have them sell like crazy, but it just don’t work that way any more. Marketing, baby!) Onward.

Statement of Blog

I’ll post fragments and photos from the trip over the next few weeks. There are big intervals between my blogging — up to 3 weeks, so if you’re interested in what I run across in the world, check in every month or so. I really don’t know how people find the time to do daily blogs. I ain’t giving up running or surfing to blog! But at the same time I like the immediacy and world-wide-ness and non-cost-ness of it. So I’ll keep at it on this kind of schedule. I’ll keep putting up photos during the rest of October. (The photos in this posting are all from my (Olympus Stylus 800) pocket camera, and before I got into shooting the houses.) Right now I’m overwhelmed with all the material I’ve gathered, graphic and otherwise. (If anyone figures out how to painlessly clone human beings, let me know, because I could use two more of me to get stuff done and keep on exploring the world.)

Oysters on the Beach

For two nights I camped on the beach on a need-not-be-named island. In the morning I went for a run at low tide and there were oysters all over the place on the sandstone reef! (This was outside the commercial beds.) I cracked some open with rocks and had sea-infused breakfast, a la sea otter. That night I barbecued oysters over a wood fire, had potatoes and onions baked in foil, fresh-picked blackberries with cream and brown sugar for desert, and slept under a canopy looking out at the water and stars. I love this part of the world. If I’d come up here in the 70s I’d likely have stayed. People up here are a lot closer to the values of 60s-70s homesteading than are folks in Marin county, Calif., which I dearly love, but is increasingly outrageously expensive, over-regulated, and impossible for people wanting the build their own house and grow some of their own food — simple goals lots of us had in the ‘60s-’70s.

Water and Wood

In July when I got into Port Townsend (WA) on an early rainy morning and looked at the variety and number and quality of the boats in the numerous harbors, I realized this was heavy duty maritime territory. The sea is big in people’s lives here and northward. Many many people get to their homes only via boat or ferry. Boat people and sailing people have their shit together in ways not necessary for landlubbers. Carelessness can have serious repurcussions once you’re afloat. Krappy craftsmanship can mean sinking. You have to deal with real life: winds, tides, swells, currents, cold, seaworthiness, landing, fishing, sailing, and you need the concomitant skills. The people I ran into were a lot tougher than Bay Area folks. The farther north you go, the more difficult life is; winters longer and wetter; landscape more rugged; physical involvement with the forces of nature more necessary.

In addition to water being all around, and boats being so prominent in everyday life, the big thing up there is W-O-O-D. There’s wood everywhere. Trees in the forests grow like crazy. Not to minimize destructive logging practices, but there are still a fuck of a lot of trees growing in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a woodworker’s dream. There are a LOT of homes built of site-cut and milled wood; this isn’t a novelty as it is elsewhere. The beaches are lined with countless logs. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, a lot of high-quality cedar driftwood got made into homes and boats. I saw 12” wide boards 10 feet long split from cedar. Many of the homes I’m covering were built in those years, which were so vastly different from current times. Lots of builders roamed beaches, using what they found as inspiration and structure for homes and cabins. As I walked along beaches I found myself eyeballing rafter-like poles, ones I could move myself.

Lloyd House

Well, my name is Lloyd and I’ve spent 40 years shooting pictures of buildings and hanging out with builders, and my company is called Shelter, and when I meet the builder of all builders, his name is — what else — Lloyd House. Cosmic, huh?

I was introduced to his work by architect/builder Michael McNamara, who gave me a lot of guidance to builders and buildings. I’ve photographed 6 or so buildings designed and built by Lloyd, and each time it’s like coming around a corner and finding treasure. When I saw his sauna, I just let out my breath, it was so beautiful, so finely crafted, so witty. The farther I looked (and shot pix), the more I found. There were delights everywhere. A little house he built in a meadow is stunning, I’ve never seen anything like it. The owner said to me on the phone just today: “I am delighted every day of my life to be in this place.” Lloyd is the main inspiration for this book — his work, the influence he’s had on other builders, his ongoing inventiveness.

Bruce Atkey

My friend Godfrey Stephens (see below) told me I had to meet Bruce, that he was the “ultimate guy.” So he was. Boat builder, house builder, carpenter, welder, mechanic, surfer, fisherman, explorer, Bruce has built cabins, houses, lodges, and surfers’ shacks along the west coast of Vancouver Island for the last 30 years. He and his buddy Wayne have also surfed what was until recently little-known surf spots all along the island’s west coast. I shot pictures of Bruce’s creations in the woods and on the beaches, and learned a bunch of things from him about daily life in general. He was born on April 26, me on April 28 (about 15 years apart), so we have a lot in common in our Taurus tendencies, like charging headlong into life.

Godfrey Stephens

Godfrey is a third important person in the unfolding plot of this book-in-progress. I met Godfrey on a beach in Yelapa, south of Puerto Vallarta (reachable only by boat), in 1964 (see page 232 in Home Work). He was a wild young artist from Vancouver Island, painting a huge mural on the wall of the village restaurant and carving driftwood on the beach. Our paths crossed again in 1971, we weren’t in touch for 30 years, and around 3-4 years ago we started emailing each other and catching up on lives lived. It seems that everywhere I went on Vancouver Island, everyone knew him. He’d lived on beaches, built several sailboats completely of driftwood, sailed on the high seas (shipwrecked once in Mexico), once circumnavigated Vancouver Island in a 16’ catamaran, travelled to India and other exotic corners of the earth, all the time painting and drawing and carving. Check his website at https://godfreysart.com

Godfrey kept emailing me that I had to see the builders of his area and he was right. Many of the builders I photographed came directly or indirectly via him. He’s sort of my touchstone on the island. He has a wonderful bunch of friends: builders, boatbuilders, explorers, artists, craftsmen, people full of life and adventure.

“Back To The Land”

Meeting all these people in the Northwest takes me back 30 years (actually 45 years, since I started building for myself in the early ‘60s). For me it was instinctive, and necessary. The only way I was going to get a home I liked was to build it. I started working nights and weekends. And no bank mortgage — what could be better? This led me to gardening (I still have a dog-eared, mud-stained copy of Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening), making things for myself with my own hands. In 1965 I quit my job as an insurance broker in San Francisco, started working as a carpenter, and was thrilled. No more neckties or business lunches to endure or endless paper shuffling. I loved the smell of wood, stepping onto a floor I’d put there myself, hanging out with builders. (Same with farmers and sailors— they have to deal with real things.) Pretty soon there was what was loosely called the “back to the land movement.” It sounds a bit lame now, I guess because the media never believed it was real. But in traveling up north, I’m meeting long-lost brothers and sisters who’ve kept the faith, and the spirit. The idea in the ‘60s was the more you could do for yourself, with your own hands, the better off you’d be — aesthetically, financially, independently. Not having a mortgage (or rent) was a life-liberating experience; early on I calculated how much I was saving in not having to pay interest on a mortgage — a staggering amount. No monthly nut. Up north the onslaught of high real estate prices and attendant over-regulation haven’t dampened that enthusiasm as it has in the Bay Area. It’s wonderful to be around people that are still operating in that realm. And just about everyone I run into in my builder-oriented travels knew and loved our book Shelter (1973). Amazing to get this feedback now. It seems everyone who worked with their hands was inspired by Shelter. I love it!

It’s also caused me to reflect on just what we (builders, gardeners, crafts people) were all doing back then. We never thought we’d be “self-sufficient.” Just try growing (and processing) your own wheat to disabuse yourself of the notion of being self-sufficient. No, the idea was to do as much for yourself as possible — within limitations of having to earn a living, raise a family, etc. Building my own house saved me so much money I had the freedom to figure out what I wanted to be as I grew up. And know what? I think those principles still apply. Can you work with your hands? Then build your own house! It can still be done, the payoff (and difficulties) are more or less the same. You just can’t do it as close to urban areas as before. Or — you can do your own remodeling wherever you live. Whoops, am I preaching here?

No Direction Home

Wasn’t that show great? Bless Martin Scorsese. Who also produced my favorite rock ‘n roll film, The Last Waltz. Jon Carroll wrote a great column in the S.F. Chronicle on Sept. 30 about Dylan and Scorsese, about continuing to work and change and evolve. I went to a Dylan concert in Providence, R.I., on a hitchhiking, soul-searching trip across the US in 1965. I had my camera and the cops let me get right next to the stage. The first half was folk music. After intermission out came Robbie Robertson and Dylan rock-n-rollified. Oh yes! His bedroom window it is made out of bricks. (I came back from the trip and quit my insurance broker job.)

Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Providence, RI, October, 1965

Two Great Gospel Records

When Gospel Was Gospel, by various artists, Shanachie. A great collection, including Sister Rosetta Sharp, The Soul Stirrers, and the Davis Sisters.

Remember Me, by Marion Williams, Shanachie. What a voice! Hey, isn’t black gospel music the best thing to ever come out of Christianity?

Diner for Sale in Northern Washington

I stopped for a latte at this great little diner in Cedro Woolley, Washington. It’s a caboose meticulously fitted out with a stainless steel kitchen, hardwood floors, wired and plumbed; it’s a charmer. And it’s for sale — $49,000. The owner has health problems and needs to sell it. She says it can even be moved, she thinks for about $6-7000 by truck to other parts. Want a ready-made diner? Want to start a new life? Call Jamie Sanchez, 360-854-9179.

The Coffee Caboose, for sale in northern Washington. L-r, customer, Melonie, Jamie

Inside the caboose I was talking to Jamie and her helper Melonie Lanning about the greatness of Italian cooking and they said, “Oh we love Italy, want to see our favorite apron?”

Melonie and her favorite apron

Stay Tuned — More to Come

In the next two weeks I’ll post photos of some of the buildings I photographed, and a bunch of other builders. I got really excited today looking through the thumbnails. These guys are unique!

Wow! I didn’t even realize what day it was until just now, after spending a couple of hours getting this blog together, and I looked at the calendar.

Confessions of a Lame Blogger

Blogging is a great concept, but I can’t seem to do it often. My life is so full I don’t want to get tied down to even more computer time. To post stuff daily would mean I’d be devoting more of my thoughts and energy into blogging. But it works for me because I love to tell people what I run across in life, and pulling some of it together in blog-form makes me focus.

Possum In The Chicken Yard

The other night Lesley told me to come out and look in the chicken yard. There was a baby possum, scampering around. Now, full grown possums are hardly cute. But this guy was, he was about 1/3 adult size. I took my long-handled catch-chicken net and tried t snare him, but only banged him with the rim. I lifted the net and he lay there on his side, motionless, like he was dead. Lesley was watching all this. After about a minute we saw his eye pop open and we both broke out laughing. “Playing possum” is rooted in fact. We finally chased him out of the yard.

Hate Radio

I’ve been tuning into some of the local right-wing talk shows. Sheeesh! Are these guys disgusting! Michael Savage is a mean, ugly, twisted creep. Yesterday someone was saying Scalia and Rehnquist were too liberal. Cindy Sheehan has kicked up a shit-storm and right-wingers are trotting out moms proud to have their kids in Iraq. Cindy’s question “What did my son die for?” has electrified Americans. Talk about a sound bite!

Great TV

We finally gave in and got the full (except for sports) Direct TV package. The programs, especially Sundance, but also HBO and the others, are a whole other level of quality. Plus I installed a TiVo receiver, can record up to 80 hours on hard drive, replay programs and zap commercials, etc. TiVo is brilliantly set up, what could be complicated and difficult has been simplified, and has clear instructions. Hell, I’m still amazed by fax machines.

Back in Running Shape

For the last 2-3 years I slacked off on running and just wasn’t running that well. Or that is, running at a level where I could keep up with my trail warrior friends. On the Tuesday night runs I lagged behind everyone. A revoltin’ development! I had a couple of not so great performances in the annual Dipsea Race. So I’m back to running 3 times a week and Tuesday night had one of those “sweet spots in time” runs, a 2-mile downhill trail where I felt like I was floating. The sun was setting over the ocean. We got to our secret swimming hole and 4 of us went swimming in the cool clean cattail-lined pond, swallows dipping to skim the surface.

It’s really shitty to get out of shape. Right now I’m nursing a shoulder injury, trying to get it healed so I can surf in British Columbia. I can see how easy it is for 60+ year-olds to give up. You get out of shape (or injured) and it’s so much work to get back in shape. Both being a lame runner for a while and being injured have galvanized me. I’m back to taking the time to work out. Bob Anderson said to me once, “You never hear anyone say, ‘I’m sorry I worked out.’” You always feel great. Gddammit, I don’t want to lose my mobility or strength. I feel better every minute of the day when I keep my body functioning.

The Dipsea Race is the big one around here. It was 100 years old this year, and is some 7 miles up and down cross-country from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach. We all obsess about it, it’s an annual goal. 1500 people run it and it’s very big time local-wise. However the race I like best is called the Mt. Tam Hill Climb. Starts at 8AM on each Labor Day, and runners go from downtown Mill Valley up 2-1/2 miles and some 2000′ of elevation to the top of the mountain. Any way you can get to the top – shortcuts through steep rocky arroyos, obscure trails off the main trails, etc. There were about 100 runners this year, all running aficionados, people who love the mountain.

I did a practice run the Sunday before and the mountain just kicked my ass. It took me an hour and ten minutes to get to the top, and I got sort of lost coming back down — ended up getting off on a pretty well-worn animal trail when I got back to civilization, but the trail ended abruptly at a fence around a very big house. Emerald green lawn. Swimming pool. Tasteful. Now I could go back up the trail and backtrack, or do a little, um, trespassing. I hopped the fence, went across the lawn, looking for the driveway I knew had to lead to a road. Doors of the house were open but I didn’t see anyone. Feeling furtive. Past the pool. Whew, here’s the driveway, which turns out to be long and winding buff-colored concrete, must have cost $300K in itself. Big electric wrought-iron gate, over which I climbed and started down into town. After about 3 blocks along comes a cop car. Went right past me. I figured people in the house reported a trespasser but didn’t give a description (guy w. long white hair, red shirt) so I prepared to slip down into the woods should the cop come back, but he didn’t. My friend Roger later told me this was Martin Cruz Smith’s house.

Sk8boarding

As I continue to skate, I marvel at the grace of real skateboarders. These kids have developed a very high level of athletic skill. They are focussed. On their own, no Little League-type adult organization, encouragement, or $$. They practice and practice, with constant peer evaluation. They watch each other trying new moves. They strive for excellence, they push the limits. Sometimes I’ll see a skater in the city, in and out of traffic, sliding sideways if necessary, 21st-century street ballet. A skateboard has to be the smallest wheeled vehicle in the world. And there are no brakes!

‘60s Coming In For A Landing

The media has always got the ‘60s wrong. If you weren’t there before “The Summer of Love” you really don’t know what happened in San Francisco. It was a fucking wonderful 3-4 years and lately those times have been getting new respect. What The Dormouse Said, a new book by John Markoff, talks about the role of Stewart Brand and The Whole Earth Catalog in development of the personal computer. Steve Jobs recently said he was inspired by reading the WEC as a teenager. Hey, that is quite a fucking influence! I want to see the 60s get more respect. And not just in science and technology, but in all the myriad activities, skills, arts, and music that coalesced at the same brief period. Just about everything I’ve read about those times seems to miss the mark widely, but I’ve never been able to write about it. One of these days…

Rock and Roll!

I don’t hear that much new kick-ass rock and roll these days. I know it goes on, I just don’t know what bands to see. Once in a while I luck out. Much as I love the blues, and much as I’m sometimes moved to tears by Sam Cooke or Al Green, or Otis, there is just something special about great rock and roll. The Fabulous Thunderbirds have just put out a great album: Painted On. It starts out with driving R&R, then a bunch of pure blues songs. A good band that has got better in recent years.

Last Monday (Labor Day) I went to a barbecue at a local roadhouse to see Billy Joe Shaver, master country song writer and soulful singer. Billy was good (“God loves ya if ya dance.”) but the next guy, Paul Thorn, was amazing. I love music, it’s a big part of my enjoyment of life, and finding a musician like this by accident is bliss. He’s a poet, wonderful, meaningful words. The music is strong. He rocks, even alone on acoustic guitar. Then after a few solo numbers his band materializes and they are — how else to say it? — exquisite. What a band! This guy is tough; he’s an ex pro boxer who went 6 rounds with Roberto Duran in 1988 (the fight was stopped because of cuts on Paul’s forehead), he’s from Tupelo, Mississippi (so was Elvis), his father was a preacher, he worked for 12 years in a chair factory, he’s REAL. Hardly like anyone from Marin County, I thought as I watched him..

He writes beautiful, romantic love songs. He’s also great looking…the little girls, they understand. Try to catch him performing if you can, he’s hot right now.

https://www.paulthorn.com/

Off For Points North

I got my truck fixed (I really didn’t like the bashed-in side), and had to move all my hundred+ items of junk out and so reorganized everything, built a sliding drawer that comes out on the tailgate, got sheets made for when I sleep inside the camper shell, built a new shelf behind the seat, and am taking off in a few days to meet builder/surfer Bruce Atkey in Tofino for a trip up the west coast of Vancouver Island to photograph buildings, interview northwest coast builders, jump in some hot springs, and maybe find some waves. Gonna stop off and have wild duck dinner with homemade red wine with my friend Louie on the way. Read all about it here (eventually)…