9x12" gouache/bristol

autumn photo

poem

 (untitled)

Proof of spirit

is handwriting.

chap 3 excerpt

    The main question for human beings is whether we were created or evolved. If you believe the former, there are explanations for it, and if you believe the latter, there are explanations for it too. When most people speak of god it’s based on the idea of omniscience—of knowing all things. An old poem once described looking down from above, that the greatest experience of all is to stand on the highest vantage of truth—to look upon a situation and see it as it is. The more you know, the higher in the heavens of truth you ascend, the more god you become—or in religious terms—the closer to god you become. That’s why politicians are treated as gods, because presumably, through intelligence briefings, they’re in possession of much more knowledge about what human existence actually is.

    I was brought up in a family of monotheists—people who believe the things described in the King James version of the Bible—that there’s a god in the heavens looking down, who created Adam and Eve, who ate fruit they weren’t supposed to, and got booted from a garden, cast out to live by the sweat of their brow. Not only do Judeo-Christians know this version of events, but Muslims too, because the exact story is part of the Koran. In other words, roughly half the people on Earth know the Creation Story as recounted by monotheist religion.

    In sharp contrast is the Theory of Evolution—single cell organisms evolved into sea animals, which moved onto land, and evolved into apes. For millions of years the physical appearances of these apes remained basically the same until an inexplicable progression occurred where brain mass increased fifty-percent, and our faces became flat while slipping into a hairless, modern anatomy. According to paleontology and archaeology it all happened in the blink of an eye—suddenly we looked like movie stars compared to millions of years of monkey-ness. The natural selection and random mutation required for us to have become what we are today—from what we were, in so short a period—hasn’t ever been explained. It doesn’t mean science is invalid, just that the theory of how we went from monkey to movie star so immediately, is a mystery, and requires faith. The Creation Story and Theory of Evolution both require faith. Whether you believe one or the other, or believe something else altogether, knowing that these two fundamental world-views each require faith.

    Most people who know Hebrew accounts in the Old Testament know they took place in the Tigris/Euphrates river valley—Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization—and in the 1850s waves of scientific expeditions conducted excavations there—British, French, and German. They brought back tens of thousands of tablets with Sumerian cuneiform writing—script composed of triangles and arrow points pressed and fired into clay. Tens of thousands of these tablets rest in basements of the finest museums around the world to this day.

    Also sitting in a museum is a popular attraction known as the Rosetta Stone; forty-five inches tall, a smooth surface containing three different scripts all saying the same thing; discovering all three in the same place enabled us to unlock the cosmology and records of the Egyptians. Lesser known, but arguably more important, is the Behistun Inscription—fifty feet high, eighty feet across, carved 300 feet up on a limestone cliff, it first came to the attention of the western world in the 1600s when an Englishman on a diplomatic mission through Iran spotted it. Just like the Rosetta Stone it has three different scripts all saying the same thing. One of the three is the Akkadian, root of all Semitic languages, including Hebrew. With the Behistun Inscription we were finally able to unlock the information found on all those fired clay tablets uncovered by Europeans. Up until about the 1880s Judeo-Christians believed the Creation Story originated through oral tradition amongst rabbis, but in fact, Adam and Eve being banished from Eden, the Tower of Babel, Noah and the Flood—all that and more—are spelled out on the fired, clay tablets. Originally and unedited the Creation Story reads as science-fiction. They record an aristocracy of beings who ruled over a group of lesser beings, and they all splashed down here on Earth a half million years ago and created humans. Many today know this due to cable TV programs and the idea of Ancient Aliens—the idea that another race of beings visited here.

    As it happened, in this original version of the Creation Story, the captain and chief science officer were brothers—Enlil was commander and Enki was chief science officer. Enlil and Enki were their names in the original version but have altered over the centuries. Through time Enlil and Enki became Zeus and Prometheus, and to Judeo-Christians, Yahweh and Lucifer, and to the Muslims, Allah and Satan. Enlil outranks Enki, just like Zeus outranks Prometheus, Yahweh outranks Lucifer, and Allah outranks Satan.

    At some point Enlil and Enki decide to create a worker—“Let us create them in our image….” The first male and female—Adam and Eve—spent each day in a garden with the lesser gods—angels—and at an appointed hour—as the monotheists tell us—fly up to heaven—Enlil’s ship orbiting Earth—while Adam and Eve are left alone, each given a portion of the garden to watch over. This went on for some time until one day Enki stayed behind at that appointed hour everyone went to hang with Enlil, and finds Eve. “Is it true Enlil said you shall not taste of every tree in the garden?” he asks.

    “We can eat of others, but the one our lord said we shall not taste, or we will die.”

    “You will not die, your lord knows that on the day you taste of it you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

    Later that evening, Enlil comes down to Earth to take a stroll in the garden and Adam and Eve hide. He asks why they’re hiding and they say they’re ashamed because they went against his command and tasted the fruit. Enlil says that because they can now distinguish between good and evil, they must be banished from the garden, telling the lesser gods, “For behold, if they eat of the Tree of Life, they will live and endure forever.”

    Sometime after we leave the garden and begin to multiply, some of the lesser gods take an interest and start getting it on with us. “The sons of God saw the daughters of men were fair….” Enlil then ruled the experiment terminated, humanity exterminated, and all the lesser gods not to alert humans to a pending, catastrophic event. Enki found the most righteous guy he could and told him he had to get his family together and build a boat.

    The question comes to mind—why would the Enlil character create a worker, tell it not to eat something, then leave it alone with that very thing each day? Isn’t placing newly minted humans in proximity to something that would alter their consciousness tantamount to child endangerment? And isn’t it an injustice to punish Adam and Eve when they had no intention of going against the original command to begin with? They were blissed-out, enjoying the garden—it was Enki bringing up the idea that things went wrong. And it appears Enlil not only sets up the temptation, but blames the victim when they fall. In addition to that, the narrative shows it was Enlil who lies because eating of the tree did not kill us, it only made some gods jealous and fearful we might become immortal too, maybe even more righteous than our creators.

    The Akkadians and cultures that followed, have all written that the Sumerians were the first writers. In other words, unless you believe those civilizations lied about where they learned to write, and/or also believe the Sumerians lied about where they learned to write, then you realize the historic record, in the form of fired clay tablets, and a giant panel carved on a limestone cliff, shows that at some point in the past, humans were taught to write. Which means we’re not alone and didn’t get where we are as a civilization without intervention by another specie of sapient beings. The question is: are they still here or gone? If still here, evidence shows they’re keeping a political charade in place in order to obscure their presence. If they’re gone, then maybe another race of sapient beings happened upon us, and they’re keeping the political charade in place in order. Or, lastly, if they’re gone and no other specie has happened upon us, then maybe the current state of affairs is nothing but a class of humans keeping the political charade in place, and the rest of us enslaved.

    Supposing we were freed from the charade, would humans not one day reach a mastery of the physical universe and travel the stars? Would we not one day master genetics and live lives hundreds of thousands of years long? Of course we would. However many different forms of sapience in the cosmos—the ability to remember the past, consider the present, and imagine the future—to know, reflect and create—means all sapient species have a seat at the same table.

    So why is the Enlil character jealous? Why care if humans know the difference between good and evil? Why care if humans tasted of the Tree of Life and lived longer? Is there an actual threat or is it a form of cosmic pettiness? Maybe Earth really is unique in its visual appeal, special in its climes, and alongside other planets, a paradise, and there’s only so much room, and the creators need to keep a lid on things? If we created a worker for ourselves, and there were limited resources, we would probably argue it’s our right to prevent our worker from overcoming us—the same way if you had pets, you wouldn’t let them eat you out of house and home.

    The problem with that excuse as to why our creators have to keep a lid on us—is framed by the history of energy, figured out fair and square by Nikola Tesla—tapping lay lines of Earth and manipulating vibrational frequencies into unlimited electrical energy. The investors put Edison in place. If you go to archives of national newspapers and periodicals you realize this is actually the truth. That when Tesla died in The New Yorker Hotel, that agents of the US Government removed all his papers and they’ve never seen the light of day since. Whether or not you believe that’s true, for the sake of argument, let’s say it is—that we have access to free, unlimited energy but are being denied it by the political charade in place—it would mean those who created us are being petty for some reason.

    Is Enlil/Yahweh/Allah sapience jealous? Why do humans have pets? To provide multiple benefits. If we humans were left to our own devices, and began to travel the cosmos and created something to comfort us, and found it to our advantage to let it believe certain things, while denying it knowledge of others things, would that be bad? In this context, are good and bad completely subjective? Or is there something which distinguishes and determines, objectively, what is good or bad?

Brain Sand

Brain Sand is known scientifically as corpora arenacea—crystal structures in the pineal gland, a small pine cone-shaped thing, kind of in the middle of our brains. Ancient wisdom sees it as a transmitter/receiver of all things psychic, i.e. the Third Eye. However one looks at it, the older you get the more Brain Sand you have so that it becomes visible on X-rays, sometimes used as anatomical landmark. Brain Sand is made up of phosphates and minerals of the trigonal system, having the shape of quartz.

autumn photo

late excerpt/chapter 3

    Next night torch stopped to Albany, a city of stark contrasts, old and new, where money landed early on and never left. We end up at an old Italian restaurant—a place gangsters ate back in the 1920s. It had black and white photos of them along the paneling behind the booths; slicked back hair, serious gazes. The hostess asks how many, Johnny asks for separate tables.

    “What?” frowns Marcus.

    “Dude’s a poet and scholar,” Johnny says pointing to me. “I’m gonna trade dinner for a couple lectures.”

    “What happened in that van last night?” Cooper asks in a squeal.

    We follow the hostess to table, go through menu, order.

    “Where you wanna start?” I ask.

    “I’m not sure,” he says.

    “You know what a continuum or paradigm is?”

    “No! What are they?!” he replies, excited.

    “Continuum and paradigm are two words which mean the same thing—a complete whole that embodies all the possibilities between two opposites—from one extreme to the other. For instance space is a paradigm/continuum—it can be light or dark, hot or cold, occupied or unoccupied.”

    “How about this table?”

    “Is it an old table or new table—handmade or manufactured—stylized or rudimentary?”

    “So it’s like there’s a plus-minus about everything.”

    “And all the pluses/minuses make up a duality known as the dao—that symbol you see at karate studios.”

    “The black and white fish in a circle!”

    “That’s the dao, the symbol for all the opposites and in-betweens throughout existence.”

    “Best lasagna ever,” he says.

    “What if we pointed to feelings?” I ask.

    “Love and hate.”

    “That’s what most say, but if hate is caused by fear, then the feeling farthest away from love isn’t hate, but fear.”

    “Oh, right.”

    “So if human feelings are the thing in question, and love is the opposite of fear, what’s another articulation?”

    “Righteousness?”

    “And on the other end?”

    “Evil.”

    “Another word for that is iniquity meaning gross injustice, or wickeness.” 

    “Iniquity,” he says, “makes me wonder. For instance, there’s a political world with politicians, a business world with business people, a media world with reporters and celebrities, and then working stiffs like me, but it seems we could do better as a whole.” 

    “It’s the difference between carpenters and film stars, professors and florists, doctors and restauranteurs, judges and auto mechanics—it’s the line between the working class and professionals.”

    “And where is that?”

    “That’s in the club of power,” I say spontaneously.

    “The club of power!” he replies excited.

    “It’s a world-view.”

    “Whaddya mean?”

    “Like if you’re Catholic, you worship one way, Protestant another way, Baptist another—and all are various ways of approaching the same world-view—Christianity. Having a college degree is a world-view like that—its own kind of religion, with its own priesthood. It’s known as academia, or the ivory tower. So that’s how it works, the ivory tower people influence the politicians, which influence the media, which influences everyone else because we all depend on the latest peer-reviewed research.”

    “Peer-reviewed?”

    “Before the latest evidence and theory about anything can be discussed by politicians, it has to first be vetted by academics working in the same field, at various institutions of higher learning.” 

    “One of the things that’s always bothered me,” he says, “is how people used to get burned at the stake for saying things against the church. We finally figure out Earth revolves around the Sun, send humans to the moon, and yet priests are still around today, still saying stupid things. I mean, is this the way it’s supposed to be? Are we just monkeys hell-bent on destruction because of superstition and fear?”

    I wasn’t clear where to start. I knew what I thought, but there wasn’t an anchor for the world-view I’d come to see. “Let me think about it,” I say.

    We finished fine Italian food and Johnny paid for it all in single dollar bills. You were always looking to get rid of ones, we paid everything in ones.

    We walk back over to their table.

    “What did you learn?” Marcus asks Johnny.

    “A college degree is entry to the club of power.”

    “You don’t need a degree to get in that club,” he says.

    “You don’t,” I reply, “but it helps.”

    “Anything else?” Kate adds jovially.

    “Teaching Johnny how to use a condom is important,” says Cooper in a giggle.

    We all walk across the street for nightcaps and hot chocolate and on the bar was a plaque. Our elbows were on the same plank Babe Ruth used to lean on. It was strange to sit at the same bar Babe Ruth had. He helped hammer baseball into a national pastime, a larger than life character everyone admired.

    “So much history here,” I mentioned as the bar tender set down drinks.

    “Albany?” he says, “Ben Franklin used to walk these streets—this is where the idea for the USA was hatched.”

*

 

    From New York we headed up into New England, so named because a European monarchy of the 1600s issued a corporate charter for the Virginia Company which in turn held the Plymouth Company—two ventures to claim land for England, conduct trade, and return a profit. A lead explorer named the region, the pilgrims arrived, and a hundred and fifty years later, their ancestors resist intolerable acts, leading to battles for independence and final expulsion of imperialist oppressors.

*

    On the route in Vermont, because mountain roads, the situation occurred where we split crew between towns. Cooper and I got dropped off up the road, and Marcus took Kate and Johnny down to meet the torch first. Because we were early, we loitered around the town square. I sold a couple of silks to a mom with daughters. A hilly town, I saw them walk up a street and cross, the girls dance-skipped as sunlight cast highlights in their hair and the silks, which they commanded into eye-pleasing flutters, waves and slashes. They were obviously happy and unless the mom played proprietor, that happiness wouldn’t have existed. There were parents who didn’t hesitate to get something for the kids, and those who wouldn’t get anything even though they obviously could. It’s like they were asleep and didn’t understand how their kid wasn’t going to be young forever, or that the Olympic Torch was a once in a lifetime moment.

    “Get a piece of history! Remember when!”

    Sometimes it was about getting people to understand where they were.

    “I can get that hat at Walmart for half price,” wise-guys would quip.

    “You mean tell everyone you got it at Walmart, instead of when you saw the runner and history before your eyes? C’mon buddy, now’s the time to get one—what style you like—I got multiple choices?”

    I really believed twenty bucks for a piece of official merchandise was worth it—and sometimes I practically gave it away if they didn’t have extra money. Parents who had plenty, kid begging, and still said no? Worse than people who’d ask where flags were made.

    “Hey this flag says Made In China!”

    “Ironic huh?” I’d say, “yet it’s direct example of Americans using freedom to profit.”

    All the merch was just stuff to commemorate, even legitimize, the festival of life.  

    I looked across the square to see Cooper getting stopped by a cop, I back up an alley between storefronts. Next thing he’s got his wallet out to show ID and gets shut down, cop tells him to stop selling without permit. Cop takes off, Cooper walks over.

    “Shut down,” he says.

    “They’ll be too busy in a few minutes. Just hang low until the crowd fills in, and if you do see him again, apologize, and in the same breath say you got a kid on the way and you’re just tryin’ to make a buck.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Your ponytail did it.”

    “Right?”

    Crowd filled in, we get mobbed by beautiful people wanting stuff; torch came, went, crowd gone, but no Marcus and van. We sat there on a bench, not a single piece of merch left, just straightening cash—an esthetic of the job which was pleasing: at the beginning of the gig loaded down with pounds of merch, and at the end, empty-handed except for bricks of cash.

    “Where the fuck are they?” Cooper asks.

    “Caught behind looks like.”

    “I’m goin’ to that pawn shop,” he says pointing, “you wanna go?”

    “I’ll go to that bookstore, let’s get back quick.”

    I got a book of poems, went back to bench, and opened it at random. Titled One Who Lived and Died Where He Was Born about someone who at birth, deep one night, descends stairs into the world of human life, and eighty years later ascends them a wise child. Right then an old guy sits on the bench next to mine and starts rolling a smoke; leathery-wrinkly skin, mop of white hair, white beard stained with tobacco around the mouth.”

    “Anyone ever tell you, you look like Walt Whitman?” I ask.

    “Sure,” he says.

    “Lived here awhile?”

    “Born across the street,” he says. I told him about the poem.

    “Mind reading it out loud?”

    I read it out loud.

    “That’s what it’s all about young man, how to become a wise child.”

    “Sounds right to me.”

    “You have to make good choices to do it I suppose.”

    Marcus rolls up in van, yells out, “Let’s go! Where’s Cooper?”

    “Here’s to good choices,” I say.

    “Good luck,” he says as I get in van.

    “You too!”

    “Where’s Cooper?!” says Marcus.

    “That pawn shop.”

    We drive over, I go in see him counting one dollar bills, two guitar cases against the counter.

    “Let's go,” I say. He loses count on ones, yells “Damn it!” and starts recount.

    “He’s buying guitars,” I say getting back in van. Marcus goes in, they come out, Cooper holding a guitar case in each hand.

    “We’re not trading guitars for merchandise!” Marcus commands.

    “I wouldn’t mind having a guitar around,” Johnny says to Kate and me in the van.

    “Take one back and hurry the fuck up! We’re gonna miss downtown!”

    Cooper paid to ship one home. He knew lots of songs and played good as any, Johnny had chops too. Cooper and Jane could carry a tune but Johnny, Marcus and I couldn’t; sometimes we all sang together anyway.

*

     End of the day as we walk to the van from a celebration site, I ask Johnny what happened earlier, how they got caught behind the torch train.

    “I was in and Kate on her way, but then she stopped for a big sale—five/six people in a group—a motorcycle cop told us to move. We turned around the block and got stuck.”

    “We have to be careful about that.”

    “Yeah, cost us money. You thought about that question right?” Johnny asks.

    “Yeah.”

    We get to another nice restaurant and separate table, this time downtown Concord.

    “Is this the way it’s supposed to be?” He asks after we order. “Is human existence supposed to be this stupid?””

    “What’s the single most important thing to humans who ever were—are—or will ever be?”

    “What?”

    “What’s the most important thing to humans?”

    “Food and water.”

    “A lot of people have died, not because there wasn’t food or water, but because they didn’t know how to get it. Also, people have died because they didn’t know what they were doing would kill them; and finally, a baby will perish if left alone because it doesn’t yet know how to care for itself.”

    “So, knowledge—knowledge is the most important thing to a human.”

    “Exactly—a perpetual, never-ending matter of life and death, indisputably and incontrovertibly the most important thing to a human. You can’t get where you want to be unless you first know where you’re at. In the big jungle we call the world—the more you know—the better off you are.”

    “Wow, awesome.”

    “Never accept anything as true unless you clearly know it to be true—that’s a old quote by a philosopher.”

    “But how do we know what’s true?”

    “What was the weather around noon today?”

    He thinks a second—“Sunny and perfect,” he says.

    “In order to know that, you had to go back into your brain and retrieve the truth—you had to think. The fact we’re thinking is proof we exist, and the fact we exist is the base truth every other truth rests on.”

    “So we know we exist—but is this the way it’s supposed to be?”

    “OK—so we’re thinking beings on a planet within a civilization.”

    “Yeah.”

    “So we know we’re part of a civilization, and we know civilizations are composed of three things.”

    “What?”

    “Give it a shot—guess.”

    “Law has to be one,” he says.

    “Correct.”

    “Science?”

    “Correct.”

    “Culture?”

    “Right, and maybe a more precise term for culture is art.”

    “Laws, sciences, and arts?”

    “Anything we can name as part of an advanced civilization falls under one of those three categories. Let’s start with laws—why they exist and what they’re composed of.”

    “Laws exist to stop bad people from doing bad things to good people.”

    “Correct, laws exist to prevent harm, and they’re composed of two things.”

    “Words, obviously. And purpose?”

    “Right. In other words, all laws are composed of letter and spirit—what do they say and why do they say what they do? A good example is the world’s first stop-sign in Detroit, Michigan, 1915. With the advent of the automobile the people alive at that time reached consensus something had to be done about auto accidents, so they passed law stating an auto shall come to a complete stop at a stop-sign. The letter of the law—shall come to a complete stop—embodies the spirit of the law—we don’t want people harming each other.”

    “All laws are composed of letter and spirit, that’s cool. What about science and art?”

    “Science and art are two sides of the same coin, they’re both based upon accumulated knowledge—what we’ve learned and presently know to be true. We couldn’t build a spaceship without knowledge of materials, and we can’t paint a masterpiece without the same. There is science to making art, and there is art to applying science. One takes us to the big outside and the other takes us to the big inside—the sciences are the stars, the arts are the heart.”

    

*

    Sometimes leaving a town for the next, Marcus would have someone else drive—whoever had straightened out all their bills first; I did a lot of the freeway driving because those guys hadn’t learned how to count money. I noticed them struggling to get a pile of crumpled up bills together.

    “You guys,” I say, “get all the ones first, create one stack; for larger bills, as you straighten in hand, put fives at the bottom, tens in the middle, and 20s/50s/100s on top. When ready to count, fold stack in half, open end up, and peel ‘em off 20-40-60-80-100.” No one listened; when it comes to counting money we’re all doing it our own way, best way or not.

    Marcus would take each stack confirm amount and enter totals in a dark green leather-bound ledger he’d bought just for the affair. One third of each count-out went new merch, one third to Marcus, the other third in your pocket. A count-out of totals would happen after each town on the way to the next, the final count-out, after the city celebration. Walking into the restaurant of our choice, determined by intelligence gathered from the crowds as to which was the best, there was always the question of who high man was for the day.

   “Too close to call,” Marcus would say, ledger in hand. He’d tally up the day while we had a drink and waited for orders. Because I had years of experience, Kate, Cooper, and Johnny were always locked in fierce battle for second.

*

   To roll along the countryside all day, landing in towns full of locals lining the streets, was the best gig anyone could have.

    “How you guys doin’ today?” you’d ask.

    “How much the pennants?” a dad replies.

    “One for twenty, two for thirty. You guys should get something!” I’d enthuse.

    “Let’s get two dad?!” say the kids.

    “All official merchandise!”

    “I like the blue and orange,” dad says, reaching for the wallet.

    If it was slow, after the sale we’d go into how great their town was, how pretty the countryside was. Mid-day would be co-workers taking a break to come out and see, professionals, shop owners, employees. Around five in the afternoon, headed towards the downtown celebration site, families would make up the crowd, and always a crew or two of some hot restaurant, sharp-looking twenty-somethings out on the curb, hoping to see the runner before the shift started. 

    “How much the banners?!”

    “The caps?!”

    “What about the Olympic flags?!”

    “You got pins?!”

    Then night would fall and often times you could see the flame coming from far away, making it more dramatic. Day or night, plenty of folks got teary eyed when the runner passed, holding torch and flame high.

*

    We wound through Vermont and New Hampshire, green hills dotted with red barns, black and white cows. Finished counting-out was pretty nice sitting in the back of a van, extra long windows, bunch of cash in pocket, watching the beautiful countryside go by. After a few days of that I realized I should try and push myself to write and found I could get some work done, but sporadic, mostly poems and scenes for plays. And then one morning I open a newspaper from the hotel lobby to see a photo of the actress and announcement for a new TV series she was to star in. It was an outdoor shot, she glowed, her blue eyes radiant as the sunlight on her strawberry blonde hair. She plays an American diplomat in England. An actress of stage and bit parts, she was now going to star in a TV series.

*

    Cooper got us caught behind the torch, and while we were in traffic it got quiet.

    “Hey Jack, we know we exist because we’re thinking—and existence is a giant duality, but what about opinion? What’s the paradigm-continuum there?” Johnny asks loud enough for everyone to hear.

    “That’s between the subjective and objective.”

    “I’ve never understood what that means!” he says excited. “I’ve heard the words subjective and objective for years, but never able to figure out what they mean! What’s subjective opinion and what’s objective opinion?!”

    “Opinion is subjective—facts are objective,” says Marcus.

    “Right,” says Kate.

    “Opinion can be objective,” I say.

    “You can’t be serious Jack—they’re contradictory,” says Marcus. “The term objective opinion is an oxymoron.”

    “College guy a mo-wan?” Cooper says in child-like mimic.

    “Let me give you an example,” I say. “What’s the best pizza?”

    “Pepperoni,” replies Johnny.

    “Veggie,” says Kate.

    “What’s the best car?” I ask.

    “Best car is a truck,” says Cooper.

    “Mercedes please,” says Kate.

    “1965 Mustang,” says Johnny.

    “Marcus?”

    “Any car made by Italians.”

    “OK, now what’s the best vacation?”

    “Fiji,” chimes Cooper.

    “Yes—South Pacific,” joins Kate.

    “No way—mountains,” Johnny says.

    “I’m with Johnny—mountains!” says Marcus.

    “All those things—best food, best car, best vacation—are all questions answered by the individual—they’re subjective.”

    “Right,” confirms Kate.

    “Now, what’s your favorite sports team?”

    “Patriots,” says Cooper.

    “Yankees,” says Johnny.

    “Figures,” says Cooper.

    Marcus and Kate didn’t follow professional sports.

    “Johnny,” I are, “how are the Yankees gonna do this season?”

    “World Series.”

    “They’re strong this year, have to admit,” says Cooper.

    “And Cooper, how the Patriots doin’?”

    “We’re rebuilding. We got quarterback drama, hopefully we do good in the draft.”

    “So if you’re really a fan, before a game starts, you know key facts—how they’re doing in their division—how they played last game—any star players out injured—all those facts prior to kick off or the first pitch—you can make an objective opinion on whether they’ll win or not. The game is played, they win, and your opinion was correct. Point is, an objective opinion, with time, can become a fact, but subjective opinion—best pizza—will never be fact.”

   “Bravo Jack! Very good!” says Kate.

    “And the take-away here,” says Marcus, “is that those who voice opinions which often turn out to be true, are people we call smart.”

    “Those are the people we want to be listening to,” says Cooper, “so when I’m talking you all should remain silent.”

    “What other paradigms for opinion?” asks Johnny.

    “There’s valid and invalid opinion, logical and ill-logical, rational and irrational.”

    “Example?”

    “Like believing there are monsters in the dark.”

    “You guys gotta pitch in for Jack’s dinner tonight,” says Johnny.

*

    Traveling through idyllic towns, where main streets from one end to the other looked like a movie set, the backdrop rising off the building tops would be rolling green hills in the distance, broken by stands of trees, and then even higher ridges and forests further still, all backed by stark blue, sometimes great white thunderheads billowing.

    Some old guy stopped me to get a ball cap for his son. “He was the tallest gymnast ever picked for the Olympics,” he says. “Except he had to go to Viet Nam.”

    “Oh.”

    “Yeah. And he’s an artist.”

    “What kind of artist?”

    “A painter.”

    “Landscapes? Portraits?”

    “Abstracts.”

    “Where is he?”

    “In his apartment. I tried to get him out. ‘Once in a lifetime moment,’ I told him.”

    “That’s too bad.”

    “The war ruined him.”

    The depressing notion of such a life made me think how badly I wanted to finish the novel, how badly I wanted to stage plays with the most talented, beautiful actress ever, who might end up a TV star. Even if she did, I thought she would always love theatre; true actors are a certain type of animal, they live to breathe, huff and puff upon a stage.

*

    Crossed into Massachusetts the noon-time ceremony and celebration happened and I wander off looking for something edifying to spark a poem. Walpole was originally part of a deal made with locals forty years after the Mayflower. Someone had gotten caught behind the torch so Johnny and I had to wait. We’d already sold out, and so with some present families, drank beer and Bar-B-Q’d across the street from a house built in the 1700s. Again it felt like California was a different country and I was a foreigner.

*

    I’m standing in a hotel elevator after a long day, thinking how much running along the route—which wasn’t really running—more like a trot you had to do between gaggles of people—with all the merch hanging off you. Sometimes there’s a crowd here—other side of street—thirty yards further—wait someone back there wants something too. Half-running all over the place, occasionally dropping stuff—there had to be a better way. Then it occurs—Skates? Roller Blades?

    In the van the next day, counting out, I brought up the idea.

    “Bingo!” says Cooper.

    “Of course!” exclaims Johnny. “I was starting to think the same thing!”

    “We’ll double our profits!” Cooper replies. “No more  humping it—the merch swinging around! We be rollin’!”

    “Hold on a minute guys!” says Marcus. “Let’s examine this—what if you fall and break your wrist?”

    “We’re not going to fall!” retorts Cooper.

    “I was in a roller blade hockey league—I skate better than I walk!” exclaims Johnny.

    “Exactly!” adds Cooper.

    “What about you, Jack?” asks Marcus.

    “I went to a skating rink a couple times.”

    “You could wear wrist guards,” Johnny says.

    “You won’t be able to handle merch with wrist guards,” shoots Marcus.

    “Yeah,” agrees Johnny.

    “Aren’t you a surfer?” Cooper asks. “You should be able to learn to skate in a day.”

    I told everyone about the skating rink at the mall when I was a kid, always ending up with a bruised butt and never took to it.

    “It’d be kinda tough to learn blades on the route,” says Johnny.

    “And if you fall wrong you’re out,” says Marcus.

    “No thanks,” says Kate, “too big a risk.”

    “Boston is coming up,” says Cooper, “unless I see a shop in the next few towns, I’m gettin skates there.”

    “Yo, you guys….” says Marcus, trying to walk back the idea.

    “I almost don’t want to do it if I can’t do it on blades,” says Johnny.

    “Right?” joins Cooper. “It’s the only way to do this thing.”

    “Let’s say you fall, or because you’re mobile, someone doesn’t see you and you get hit, now what? We lose time getting you to a hospital, and I have to find a new vendor,” argues Marcus.

    “Bro,” says Cooper, “we ain’t gonna fall or get hit, and we’re going to sell way more.”

    “Ok, whoever wants to skate has to put up a bond,” says Marcus.

    “How much?” shoots Cooper.

    “Yeah—how much?” follows Johnny.

    “You guys,” Marcus says, “we have the drill down—we load up—we deploy—we move on. We’re profitable right now—break your wrist—getting another vender will be a hassle.”

    Cooper and Johnny ask how much for the bond. 

    “A thousand bucks,” says Marcus.

    “Done,” says Cooper.

    “Here—here’s mine right now,” Johnny says going into his bag. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize this sooner, I hate waddling up the street to a new group of people.”

    “Skates are the proper way to do this thing,” adds Cooper.

    “Tell you what,” says Marcus, “we got the layover in the New York City. Get skates there.”

    “Why?!” retorts Johnny, “Boston is before New York, and they’ll have the best available.”

    “If we overnight new merch in Boston, I’ll drop you guys off while I get it.”

    

*

    Selling somewhere outside Boston a corporate sponsor guy comes over. A confrontation was looming because I’d seen them watching us sell tons of stuff, reducing sales at their kiosks set up at the noon and evening celebration sites. This guy comes across the street, six-foot plus, pink polo shirt shock of cropped black hair.

    “Hey, you can’t sell that here,” he says loud so everyone within earshot pauses.

    “No?”

    “It’s not official merchandise,” he says.

    “But it is.”

    “No—you better leave or I’m calling the cops.”

    “Sir, this is merchandise shipped from the Olympic Committee.” I say advancing to show silvery hologram.

    “You don’t have a permit.”

    “Hey leave the guy alone,” says someone, “he’s out here making a buck.”

    “We had to buy a permit to sell here,” corporate guy says.

    “He’s not a soda company, he’s an independent.”

    “And how does that matter?”

    “Hey—take it somewhere else,” someone else says followed by a “Yeah!” from another.

    “Our stuff is official and collectable, sir.” I say, moving on.

    “You guys are toast!” he calls after.

    Right then cops come on the scene, corporate guy goes over and sets the cops on me; they come over and tell me to stop selling without permit. Later when I told everyone, Marcus and Cooper knew who I was talking about.

    “Pink polo shirt?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Biff?” Cooper says with a chuckle. 

    “He’s gonna get the cops after us.”

    “He better watch out or he’ll get popped,” Cooper says.

    “He’s pretty big,” I say, knowing they were even in size.

    “I’ll pop that guy into next week,” says Cooper.

    “Not a good idea,” replies Marcus, “he’s connected to the Olympic Committee.”

    “Seriously, we have to be careful!” cries Johnny.

    “Yeah!” follows Kate.

    “All right—all right,” says Cooper, “I’m not gonna get us kicked off the route.”

    “We might have to stop doing the celebration sites,” says Marcus, which was a horrible thought because the noon/evening celebrations were a huge crowd you didn’t have to run down a street, just post up somewhere and stand there until you sold out.

    “That’s another reason to do this on skates—we can skate from the bozos,” says Copper.

    We decided that if we get stopped by a cop, tell them the boss is at city hall getting permits, and always say you’re just trying to make something extra to help your family.

*

    Next afternoon we head into Boston and celebration site downtown. Biff was waiting with cops and we all got arrested and taken to jail—no warning, just grabbed us, threw us in a waiting van, and towed away our vehicle. After the night in jail, when we got back to our van in the city yard, the police had rifled through it. Sadly, they took lots of cash. Luckily I had three grand wrapped in a t-shirt underneath dirty laundry they didn’t get and I escaped a risk in venture capitalism.

    Up until that point we hadn’t had any hassles with cops at all. As vendors with stacks of hats on our heads, t-shirts over shoulders, armfuls of flags and pennants—to most cops we were part of the pageantry and they couldn’t care less if we were venture capitalists, and often got something for themselves or their family.

*

    Marcus and Kate were getting along. “Yeah, I’m really into her,” he said. She was ten years younger, smart, beautiful. My guess was she’d be gone the minute the torch entered the Olympic Stadium and the gig was over.

*

    We broke crew records in New York City. Marcus paid for parking and we just loaded up, went out, sold out, and loaded up again. The sidewalks were packed. I jumped in front of barricades a few minutes here and there before told to get back on the sidewalk by the cops. I was high man and had bricks of cash getting a beer in the bar of our boutique hotel. The question of whether or not to get skates had been gnawing at me. The nagging fear I’d fall, break something, and be done. Counter that was the fact that it really was a hassle to half-run, half-waddle, loaded with merch, trying to get forty yards down the street to the next gaggle of people. Skates were essential to the routine, the torch route was meant to be skated. Then I remembered what it was like to be on ice skates as a kid, arms windmilling to prevent myself from falling on my ass. Was I going to or not?

    Next morning and a layover in NYC, Cooper and Johnny and me get a cab to a skate shop. They put their’s on and test around in the small space available. They were both really good, one hundred percent competent.

    “We’re gonna ramp up our totals.” says Cooper.

    “Yep,” replies Johnny. I figured I get a pair and if I couldn’t get it down quick, send them home, and carry on, on foot.

    I put mine on, stood up, felt awkward and tense and started to windmill. “What’s the matter Cali?” asks Cooper with a giggle. I tried to move, more windmilling and almost fell on my ass. I sat on the bench and started to take them off.

    “Oh, come on Cali—don’t quit now!”

    “I’m not quitting.”

    “C’mon we’ll go to Central Park and help you out!” Johnny says.

    “I need to sit alone with them a bit,” I say. “You guys go have fun, I’ll take your shoes back to the hotel.”

    I got back to our room and took them out of the box. They were black and gray with a silver stripe running along the outer foot rising up back of the heel. I was impressed with the advanced design and materials. A brand new pair of skates are an impressive product. I moved some pieces of furniture out of the way, put them on, and moved back and forth on the hotel carpet until I got a sense of what it was all about. I walked with them, then shuffled back and forth as if I had to get out of the way of something, and just stood in them. Eventually I got comfortable enough, went out to the elevator lobby where there was tile floor, just took it slow and really focused. I got better and better and figured I might look the kook here and there for a bit, but I was definitely going for it.

    I knew the address to the theatre where I last saw my muse, and made my way to it. When I got there I skated around the patio in front of the theatre where we had sat. I was like, Oh my god, we sat right here! I skated around and daydreamed about her until it got dark. Skating is a type of flying, there’s nothing like going about your way on a smooth stretch of pavement. I was going to live in the things, and I did. Put them on in the morning and took them off before the night’s shower—was all over the place the first few days. Once on wheels though, the route completely changed. Instead of jumping in and out of the van—which was often chaotic—now we’d jump out at the beginning and skate till we ran out of merch, then get picked up. Our sales went way up. We were stoked. I did go down once or twice, and I did get flipped up into the bed of a small truck, driven by a teenager exiting a parking lot real quick. That was the only serious moment, but the whole route I never broke skin enough to bleed.

*

    Johnny paid for another dinner.

    “Another thing I was wondering about is animals. Why are things between us similar, but then different? I mean I talk to my dog all the time and he knows what I’m saying, but what is that all about?”

    “What’s your dog’s name?”

    “Milo.”

    “The difference between you and Milo is the difference between two words—sentience and sapience. Ever seen a documentary where whales swim in a circle below a school of fish and start sending air-bubbles up in a ring?”

    “Yeah, they kind of corral their food.”

    “That’s animal sentience—the intelligence to catch food and survive—which includes understanding emotional stuff—like your dog knowing if they’ve done something to make you happy or upset. Animals and humans can communicate emotions through sound and body language, but sapience is something atop all that—it’s the human ability which enables us to examine the past, consider the present, and imagine the future.”

    “Wow.”

    “Making art is an act of reflection, right? That’s sapience.”

    “But gorillas and elephants paint.”

    “That’s learned behavior, otherwise we would’ve witnessed animal art all over the place, long before Koko the gorilla or elephants painting for tourist money. The word sapience comes from the Latin Sapere, which means to taste or know—so interestingly it has a biblical connotation—to taste fruit from the tree of knowledge.”

    “Know what I was thinking today? People who are right about a lot of things, but then wrong about really important things—that’s always bothered me.”

    “You mean living based on opinion with no basis in reality? You know what a truth table is?”

    “No.”

    “When you go to college they make you take a course in formal logic. A truth table is where you plug in parts of a statement to test whether it’s valid or not.”

    “You mean prove if someone is wrong about something?”

    “Yeah. When it comes to objective matters, either an opinion squares with facts or it doesn’t.”

    “So like you can prove it mathematically, you can’t just believe whatever you want?”

    “Exactly,” I say. “Unless you’re rich.”

    He nodded with a smile.

    “A poet once said that hearing the truth is such a rare thing, it’s a delight to tell it; but then another said the worst thing about seeking truth is finding it.”

    “Sounds like truth is a delight to the delightful, and a horror to the horrible.”

    “Sapere Aude,” I say.

    “What?”

    “Sa-pair-ay—ah-day.”

    “What’s that?”

    “It’s Latin, means—dare to know.”

    “Dare to know? What?”

    “The truth.”

    “That’s what I’m buying dinners for,” he says.

    “Remember you said it was like there were all these politicians and business people and media people and they kind of tell the rest of us what to do?”

    “Yeah.”

    “You want to know the truth about all that?”

    “Fuck yeah.”