heathervescent

Motorcycle Madness

I've been spending a lot of time with Lady Knight recently. Mototravelogue is coming up, but as a preview, check out these photos and movies from my recent adventures. Heather's Motogirlies Cabin Run Photos. Paula's Cabin Run Photos. Jurij took these movies of motorcycling in the Santa Monica mountains. This one (Shannon, Wendy and I at the Rock Shop) and this one (motorcycle's eye view - I'm three up from the camera man) are the best.

BM Costume Preview 2

My friend Gloria came over tonight and we fine tuned my BM costumes. She also took pictures, so I posted them for a preview. I'm really excited. The EL Wire on these costumes is going to be great. I've got a bit more craftmanship to do tomorrow, but it's all looking good. Everything needs to be packed and ready to go by Wednesday.

I picked up a really excellent southeast asian three tiered umbrella today at the Silverlake festival. I also met some sisters of perpetual indulgence there. I'll write more about that and the drag racing tomorrow.

I have a castle in the vicinity

The Sargasso Manuscript is a twisty, tricksy film and my story follows the intricate weavings. On Christmas day I was introduced to, who I call, a Mister Jauntie. I was riding in the passenger seat of a small SUV on a sand road in the eastern mojave. Mr Jauntie revealed himself from the shadows of the sand road. He stood tall, with long pointy horns, like antelope horns, with a look of "that's all it takes" across his body. As we drove on, the figure blended back into the shadows on the road.

A few months later I was driving through the mojave desert again. I was alone. A long stick caught my eye at the side of the road and I thought of Mr Jauntie. I stopped my car and got out to inspect. It was a slim, slightly curved stick. I picked it up and held it in my hands. It wobbled and the smooth worn wood felt very comfortable in my hands. It was very long, much taller than me and I was just able to put it in my car. It took up the entire length of my small SUV.

Many months later, after I moved to Santa Monica, I figured out what that stick was. It was a bow. And I learned more about Mr Jauntie. Mr Jauntie is known under many names: Coyote, Loki, Cupid, Devil, Love.

Love is the trickiest and most effective emotion of humans. When afflicted, humans will change their lives for love. Love is the wild card. There are those who will do anything for love, are addicted to love, have an ideal vision of love and are looking for it. Avadoro says of it "I reckon that from one end of the world to the other, the story of Love is always the same." Love is a fickle game.

The Sargasso Manuscript is pure delight. Creepy and calm. Simple and spellbinding.

"You have a castle in the neighborhood? You didn't mention it." - Alphonse
"It just proves the beauty of modesty." - The Cabalist

"I've lost the feeling of where reality ends and fantasy takes over." - Alphonse in the Cabalist's Castle

"A true researcher proceeds among riddles." - Don Pedro?

The film is a surreal adventure full of surprise, confusion, delight, horror, love and self-awareness. Can stories become self-aware? There is no way to describe my delight in this movie. It's the same level as Fellini's Satyricon - a series of stories that unravel and reveal their interconnections and exoconnections. And the chilling almost final shot of the film: Alphonse watching himself walk away with the two sisters, only to have himself walk back towards himself to retrieve a dropped shoe from himself and to find himself looking at himself in the mirror with the sisters and their destination faded.

As the beautiful Cabalist's wife says, "All these adventures begin simply. The listener thinks it'll soon be over, but one story creates another and then another."

heading a north

I'm about to load up, lube the chain and and mount. Lady Knight and I are heading north to meet up with burners, motogirlies and a special friend. It's a lot to pack into a short jaunt, but it's what I'm doing. I'm excited to get my custom leather suit started by Helmut at Helimot's in San Jose.

Well, gotta load on up. Type at ya later.

Questions from Jonah

I'm finally catching up on my blogsites, but missed this last friday. I'm doing it anyway.

1. How long have you lived in Los Angeles?
I've lived in here as an adult for exactly 2 months or 62 days.

2. Were you born here?
I was born in Whittier, CA, which is as you know, nearby.

3. How long did you plan on staying here originally?
Um, I plan to stay here indefinitely.

4. How long do you plan on staying here now?
Indefinitely.

5. What keeps you here?
Great weather, my convertible, a beach I can swim at, fabulous motorcycle roads.

6. What makes you want to leave?
Nothing yet. I guess I'm still in the Honeymoon phase.

7. What is your biggest surprise about living here?
That I completely and utter love it down here.

8. What is your biggest disappointment about living here?
That Yahoo didn't have it's shit together to hire me, but then again, that's probably good in the long run. I want to have a life and maybe I've had enough experience with big corporate Internet companies.

How to live life like you're on vacation.

A couple months ago Carson gave this advice to a friend of his who was agnsting about his life state: "Why don't you try living like you're always on vacation?" This advice was promptly discarded, but Carson and I talked about this. I wondered, how would you live life like on vacation? Vacation was on the simple level, not working, but a deeper exploration made me realize that it's not just about not working, it's about choosing what you experience. I've been keeping this in mind as I lived the past 8+ months and trying to put it into practice, but it's been hard. I've been ungrounded, detached, not hooking onto anything, uncomfortably floating around in the human soup. It occurred to me that there is an easy way to live life like you are on vacation. Ask yourself, "Self, what do I want to experience today?" Choosing what you experience is being on vacation. You may say, "Today I want to experience exhilaration and the open air." Then get on your bike and ride along Ocean Walk - or jump in the convertible and drive up through the hills. Even when the car breaks down in the middle of Venice and Lincoln, you can choose what you want to experience.

So that's how to live life like you are on vacation: Decide what you want to experience, and then experience it. It's all up to you.

Burning Man Costumes

The man burns in 25 days and I am working on my costumes today. With very minimal shopping, but major digging out the old costumes, Heather has put together 6 different costumes. I've taken some pictures of them in their safe ziplock bags. I may see if I can get someone to take pictures of me in them before the burn. It's amazing what you can do with a hot glue gun and some imagination at the fabric store. I'm sure I've spent too much money already, but hey, it's Burning Man. It's a vacation, it's a participation, It's an experience man and I'm not going to do it half-way.

The only thing on my mind is glow. I've got blinkies on order and I want to use some EL Wire to light up my costumes... so the glow is in the works.

Glow, glow, glow ideas....

after enlightenment

it's true. after enlightenment you still chop the wood and carry the water. just because you have seen the light of the universe doesn't mean you get whisked away to the land of eternal wise. you see more. see more motivations. understand people in all their glory. you still have to have to live and eat. You will pass your time doing various things - and it doesn't matter what you do - as long as you do them.

That goes for those of us who aren't enlightened yet too. ;)

random thoughts and drives

A lot has been percolating in my brain the past couple weeks as I drive around, stop with some quasi drama, keep the calm, deal with drama, keep going as if no bump in the road.

I've been thinking about loneliness and what it means to live alone. The freedom, the power, the sadness, human connection, touch, interaction. What do _I_ want? It's something that I know most of the time and occasionally get confused and unsure and insecure. Especially as I try on different personas (go outside my comfort zone) and hang out with different personalities.

Typing of personas, I've been trying on the slacker persona with no luck whatsoever. I like to _do_ things. It's in the doing of things that I am. By rubbing myself up against experiences (by doing things) I learn about myself - what do I actually do in any given situation, other than what I think I would do. It's interesting and enlightening.

I've been watching a slew of movies: Naked Lunch, Eraserhead, She-Devils on Wheels, The Village, What the bleep do we know. They're all about creating a new reality. I had never seen Eraserhead before and I was surprised at how the story was completely main-stream - which makes the expression of it (Lynch's style) all the more obvious. My downstairs neighbor's cat yowls just like the eraserhead baby - which made for a strange awakening occasionally last week.

And then I've been exploring the roads en motorcycle and convertible. Yesterday Carson and I drove around the Santa Monica Mountains on various roads that connected to the Mulholland Highway. These roads are amazing. They somewhat remind me of northern California Marin and to the north roads, but there are way more canyons. They are sharper mountains, young and rugged and very ominous. The mountains are powerful and raw and somewhat scare me in a way I'm not sure how or why. As I drove on these roads the view of my life shifted, I could live up here - in fact - I've always wanted to live in a rugged place like this. It seems so far away from civilization, but Malibu is a mere 15 miles away, the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley are another 15 miles away. Santa Monica is not much more than 25 miles away. The more this percolates in my mind, the more it appeals to me.

I also did some exploring on the east side of the Santa Monica Mountains. I wove my way up the valley side of Griffith Park and scooted through it stopping by the Carousel. I was riding my motorcycle and the organ circus grinder music caught my attention. I could almost recognize the songs - they were Felliniesque. As I pulled into the parking lot I was greeted by a scrawny coyote waiting around for scraps. I parked my iron horse up under a tree. Removed my helmet and jacket and sauntered down, clop clopping in my Daytona riding boots, towards the spinning circle. I bought a ticket and a gum ball and smacked my teeth blowing bubbles until it was time to mount a wooden horse. The time came and I was pulled to a horse with a carved helmet piece. As I write this now, it seems perfect that I would be drawn to this horse, but at the time I was unaware of the connection. I jumped up on her, my jacket laying across my knees and we waited for the music to begin.

I have this delight of riding carousels. The music, the wind, the spinning that blurs the outside world. As I rode on the spinning circle, watching the empty horses go up and down in mechanical motion, it occurred to me that it doesn't matter which horse I got on to ride. The ride was still the ride and would end and begin. The horses were there for me to ride. They could not get cut lose and run free like the mural at Ocean Park and 5th in Santa Monica. And that was ok. Because I was there, sitting on one, watching the way the world works. Replace the horses with people and personalities and costumes. I buy a ticket and can try on any costume I want. But I have to pick the same costume for the duration of the ride. Some carousels have only horses and others have all kinds of fantastic animals. This is another costume parameter. The organ music added to the surrealness of my vision. I was reminded of the woman swinging in that Fellini film, the faces with their dark eyeliner, the eyes outlined, the mouths in various gestures of which words do not exist to categorize.

The music stopped. The movement stopped. I got off and walked up the hill to Lady Knight, where she was waiting for me under the trees.