Odds and Ends

Am I the only one who misses “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson”?

Not thinking is superior- although much more difficult for some- to thinking yet I can’t seem to stop trying both.

Holding hands with your girl is forever underrated.

Anybody heard from Spike Lee lately?

Instant communication doesn’t help anybody.

Johnny Bench is the best there is, the best there ever was, and the best that there ever will be…………………now let’s move on to Clemente.

Are Banana Splits (the dessert, not the band) still popular?

Saw a beautiful young girl in a short skirt and high heels today. She was talking on her phone and didn’t seem to know I was alive. Creamy flesh, rose scented, long lean legs, fine ankles, dainty feet. God or no……………somebody did something right.

Cops piss me off………….am I wrong?

The sound of water flowing off a mountain is the truth.

The best quote I can recall from a Playboy Interview- Christopher Walken: “I mean…I like children but after a couple of hours I think…….I wish you would go away so I could have a conversation or something.” The man is close to my heart.

I’m basically ashamed of my attachment to my Ipod.

Had a wonderful girlfriend once (genius level performance artist) who lowered herself to watch football with me one Sunday strictly in order to please me. After careful observation she commented,
”Why don’t they wear different colors?”
I replied, “They do…one team’s wearing blue and white and the other’s got black and white with gold trim.”
She said,
“No…….I mean why doesn’t one team wear…..say…………. purple and the other team wear green.”
I could not dispute her feminine logic.

The other day I did not have sex with the wife nor did I even trouble myself to jerk off but I did, somehow, manage to get good and drunk. That’s age, baby, and death must be sniffing around somewhere.

My Ex-Pat Manifesto....................again

Religion.
Yes.
I must begin by stating the obvious and the obviously painful. If you are reading this then you and I are most likely simpatico and so I’m preaching to the choir just as everyone does with their own specific choirs’ so that consequently, and unfortunately, this is exactly the hopeless junction where we all miss the train. We pick our sides in this most minor of debates and then thump our books and quote our quotes to shore up our egos and support the beliefs that we’ll never stop trying to believe with our hearts fully open and our ears and eyes completely closed. We’ll go on and on debating, then cursing, then fighting and then building bombs. Maybe one day one side will build a really big one that ends the argument.
And none of us ever move the other guy a split cunt hair.
Well I’ve been listening and for what it’s worth……………………….

It’s 2007 and it, sadly, needs to be stated over and over again and then one more time. Open your eyes, we are here now, do not be afraid because it’s only life and then one day you (and me and everyone else) will die. There is no escaping it and if there is a reward at the end it will certainly be better than any of us deserve if not quite exactly what we were expecting but why not, just as a change, focus instead on the here and now so that we may just, possibly, improve our situation a tiny little bit and perhaps leave a smaller mess than the one we inherited.
There is no old white man with a long beard coming out of the sky to save me, there is no Prophet who owns the Final Wisdom, there is no one set of rules that insures my eternal safety, there is no amount of kneeling and begging that is going to make me a better person than less kneeling and begging would. Religion is fear. Pure and naked and as ugly as it gets. It is the creation of a being who craves constant and eternal reassurance because he knows he’s done something wrong and hopes that he can somehow weasel out of any unpleasantness without doing anything particularly difficult or costly. It is the fantasy of a creature that is simultaneously too foolish to appreciate the beauty surrounding him and too vain to ever stop thinking about anyone but his God who, he's been promised, closely resembles the man in the mirror.
The major spiritual difference between me and my cat is that my cat doesn’t know or care that he’s going to die because he’s too damn busy living and being a good cat. Maybe he’s a lazy ass, self-centered, son-of-a-bitch but not many days go by where I feel more worthy of life’s joys than him although I’m fairly certain that I’m almost always more grateful.
Practitioners of religious faith are the modern day magicians performing ancient card tricks on a gullible populace who seek a little excitement and sympathetic understanding from the very charlatans who empty their pockets and fill their heads with emotionally fascist bullshit but I can’t blame the pushers because everybody’s got to make a buck and the buyer really should beware. You may pick your own examples of the rampant insidious hypocrisy of their establishments as there are simply too many to list here. I myself was subjected to the American Roman Catholic variety of superstition and I’m afraid I’d need a few thousand additional words to even outline the fractured ethical practices of that organization but suffice to ask this?
Does anyone notice that in the last decade the RC Church has finally begun their much too late shelling out of multiple hundred million dollar settlements to that not so small portion of their young flock that in the past -and who knows about now- they’ve gotten most……um……familiar with…… and this hasn’t even dented their finances? Think about it.
Let’s keep it simple.

Look at the person next to you. Do you think you could make him/her feel welcome or appreciated or loved? I think you can and you don’t need me or anyone else to tell you how to do it. Start there and once you’ve mastered that we can move on. Personally I’ve been working on that one for over 40 years with widely varying degrees of success so if you can pull it off, congratulations and if you can’t just yet, don’t worry you will if you try- at least sometimes and maybe often- so welcome to the human club and good luck.
There is a moral compass inside all of us that tells us exactly everything we need to know about which direction is north and if your brand of faith is completely in sync with that compass then I would be willing to bet cash money that you are either- brainwashed, delusional, in denial, a liar or all 4. We can ignore this compass or fight it or follow it according to our whims and that, ladies and gentlemen, is called free will and yes, without it you may consider yourself a prisoner of society, religion or faith. Hope it works out for you. With it you are an everlastingly imperfect person in a wild, beautiful world so...............

Enjoy.

If your compass is out of whack it’s most likely because somebody tried to fix it. Will your compass always comfortably align with the Law? No, that would be the Perfect World and this is only, alas, the real one where brave souls are sometimes called upon to take firm stances. The compass can lead to greatness or hardships or anything in between so roll your dice and enjoy your humanity and the companionship of those around you because you most likely deserve it and maybe a little more. Do bad people do bad things? Yep. Always will.
If, however, for some wonderful reason, your brand of worship leads you to become a better person than you might not otherwise be, by all means, pray continue. Religious freedom is a wonderful gift for the frightened masses that only hope to band together and engage in a “spiritual” daisy chain of stroking each others egos with simple assurances of being “saved” from whatever particular damnation they fear but the Constitution provides all with complete freedom to practice your mythology so, fellow Americans, enjoy and please keep all that happiness to yourselves. My country is NOT based on your brand or any other. When it works it's "by the people and for the people" and when it doesn't it's our duty to fix it without asking for any divine help. So let's roll up our sleeves, spit into our hands and grab a mop....it's time for some elbow grease.
If, conversely, your brand compels you to ring strange doorbells unannounced and unwanted or bend your friends’ ears with unsolicited advice and counsel then perhaps you may want to reconsider your behavior.
If your brand invokes, compels or pleads for you to kill, maim, imprison, enslave, or judge your fellow human beings you may want to reexamine the text on which your doctrine is based because I’m fairly certain that you are (intentionally or not) misinterpreting it.

Here’s my quote from Peter McWilliams wonderful “Ain’t nobody’s business if I do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crime in America”

“All the major religions boil down to the same principles- Love everybody…Don’t judge anybody.”

If you can pull that one off then you’re a better man than me, neighbor, and you don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.

The Hippies are coming, the hippies are coming.....

Dude! Where’s my Decade?



I accidentally stumbled into the 60’s last weekend when the wife and I took a leisurely shopping stroll on a lovely, sunny, Sunday in Kyoto. Our ultimate destination was the Bike (as in bicycle) Shop to purchase some new wheels but along the way we got caught in a tie-dyed tide of dreadlocked, Earth shoe wearing, patchouli oil reeking, compost heaping, tree hugging, peace loving, all organic, perpetually stoned/smiley hippies heading for Kyoto University so………….yes……….we, inexplicably, drifted into that gentle “All we are saying is give peace a chance” flow.



As for me, I’m really more of an angry, alcohol swilling, fried cow eating, motorcycle loving misanthrope with no God, no patience and a rapidly aging appetite for destruction- my own and everyone else’s- and so consequently, I fit into this party about as well as Dick Cheney at the Playboy Mansion but at least no one seemed to mind and a good time was achieved by all as far as I could determine.


There was truly no representative demographic here although the 30ish crowd with barefoot children running wild did seem to be the barely dominant breed. But all ages from craggy faced septuagenarians hanging onto their graying hair by growing it down to the ass level of their hemp MC Hammer pants to grubby faced Wild Childs bouncing around the grounds like superballs in fearless abandon, complete freedom and totally reckless disregard for anyone around them were enjoying the festivities very nearly equally along with just about every age in between.

Yes, that is a tree house. And, yes........those are adults sleeping in it.


Gai-jin were scarce and designer jeans, bags, shoes or accessories even scarcer which is truly, profoundly unusual for Kyoto but that complete lack of materialistic consumer worship in full public view was oddly comforting. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen a young woman who didn’t look like the clothes on her back cost as much as a good used car and while that’s always OK with me I have to admit it was somewhat pleasing for a change to see chicks going natural in terms of their fashion and the overall greed level was, perhaps subsequently, quite low.
My own contribution to the days grace was strictly monetary and quite minor- 2 coffees with 2 organic cornmeal breads to nosh while we ambled about (600 yen= $6), the coffee was excellent and on time, the cornbread surprisingly hearty and tasty. Don’t know why but organic beer (shudders) and tequila seemed to be quite popular but as I deteriorate I find it increasingly less attractive to drink during the day and so I generally save my drunken madness for when the sun goes all the way down but that didn’t stop the crowd from their liberal intake of spirits, smoke and relaxation so all was most definately well at Kyoto U.

On this lovely Spring day the vegan, all natural, group hug vibe was permeating the air along with another- more pungent and much more familiar- odor of sweet corruption which may have accounted for the sleepy, happy, bashful and dopey smiles (sorry… I couldn’t remember the other 3 dwarves) in evidence everywhere one cared to look and the odor was yet another very unusual occurrence around these parts (traditional Japanese being bizarrely adverse to artificial stimulation that doesn’t include alcohol) so credit to the Freaks where it is due- they flew their flags loudly and proudly and I for one was most happy for them and, incredibly, with them.
And my Brother from another Mother, Eric, would’ve deeply, deeply appreciated the lovely perfume in the air and felt……… right……………… at home!



As the sun slowly set the Band mounted the stage and (pedal powered) threw themselves into…………….don’t know…………………a song?


Good Christ! The “music” was an atonal nightmare
of limp dick twiddling, navel gazing stoner bullshit, including a fucking didgeridoo, but the lead singer (big ponytails and bigger smile) was quite possibly one of the most charismatic performers I have yet seen and he held the rapturous crowd in a loving thrall.

Final analysis- While normally I am most likely the guy manning the fire hose in these situations on Sunday I settled in and communed with my Hippie Brothers and Sisters with ease and significant satisfaction. No mean feat to me and all, and I mean all, credit to them. Don’t know how they make a living in this here day and age (or how I do either) but more power to each and every one.

I left thinking…………………………………….
What the fuck is so funny about peace, love and understanding?

My Ex-Pat Manifesto...continued

Mr. and Mrs. Red State USA, the terrorists are not coming to get you!

Allow me to explain.

Let’s think of the world as a giant school and each nation as a student in our worldwide classroom. Right now (2007)the USA is the biggest, richest, youngest kid in the class and everyone knows it. Imagine a 700 lb. strong willed toddler who’s used to having his way in the School. Why? Because that’s the way he’s always had it. He's huge, powerful, infantile, lovable, dangerous and oblivious in equal measures. Of course, as in any school- intelligence, drive, discipline and hard work will allow most students to succeed but certain countries are going to excel despite any circumstances because they have the most (and a gold star to you if you guessed it) MONEY and RESOURCES. The Japanese kid, the German kid, the Swiss kid and to a lesser extent the English, French, Indian, Chinese, Spanish and Italian kids are all going to graduate even if their parents have to buy their way through and then they’re going to move on to their separate more or less successful careers. The African kids, the Mexican kids, the third world kids, they’re hanging on by a thread with little to no room for error, one small miscue and they’ll be flushed down the toilet forever. On the other hand there is almost nothing the Toddler from the USA can do that will harm his chances because he is the biggest of BMOC’s and even he knows this.
And what feelings does this aura of entitlement unwittingly encourage in other classmates? Envy, admiration, awe, malice, sycophancy and hatred in disproportionate amounts based on individual relations.

Where are the terrorists in this school? They have no place, they’ve been expelled, thrown out, discarded.

Now imagine the poisonous hatred of a mean little prick who has to sit on the sidelines and watch the other kids play nice with their spiffy uniforms in their fancy school with shiny classrooms and the best of everything while he can only press his nose up to the glass of a locked door, fuming and plotting his big day of revenge. Does this little bastard get help at home to assuage his anger? No he does not. Indeed at home his frustrating problems continue because he’s strapped with insane parents who not only don’t comfort him but, being religious fanatics who are sure that GOD is on their side, actually fan the flames of his hatred and encourage his fantasies of retribution against his enemies who, in truth, barely notice his existence or lack thereof. They fill his mind and soul with psychotic delusions based on their particularly peculiar mythology promising glorious revenge, revolution and one day, of course, his own school where his children are running the show.
So what is this scruffy, hungry, frustrated, passionately deluded urchin’s redress? Will he burn down the school? No. The job is too big and he is too small. Will he kill all his enemies as he insane parents have promised him? Never happen. There are too many and he is always making more. Will he one day enroll in “the School” himself and exert his will from the inside. Not a chance in Hell. His fanatic family has ensured his social blindness and enslaved his malleable little mind so completely that he cannot even dream dreams other than those of twisted paradise for “the True Believer” sold to him by crazed fundamentalists who worship only God and despise everyone else.

But because he is hopelessly trapped in his passion, anger and determination you know what? Every once in a while he’s going to get up the nerve to sneak into the playground and kick someone right in the balls before he runs away in joyous celebration.
Every now and again he’s going to nail one of the kids in the playground smack in the head with a rock he’s thrown from across the street with minimum skill but maximum hate then celebrate his glorious victory against his oppressor.
From time to time he’s going to flatten some tires in the parking lot, break some big expensive windows and pull the fire alarm so that every damn one of us has to march out of the school and mill around like cattle while he hyperventilates behind the bushes as he slips his slingshot out of his back pocket and takes aim.
Is it gonna sting? You’re damn right it is but he has absolutely no chance of closing the school and he never, EVER WILL!
Only occasionally will he ever he be captured and only then wrestled to the ground while he spits in your eye and curses your Mother. Lock him up and he’ll spend his days praying for strength and waiting for his now much more specific revenge.

But breathe easy Mr. and Mrs. Red State because the vicious little son-of-a-bitch is not coming to bomb your strip mall, blow up your corn silo, burn down your Wal-Mart or sabotage your satellite dish. His ultimate accomplishment (and he's already achieved it) will only be the most minor of footnotes in your otherwise busy day.
He’s not the seething, bestial Hun at the gate gnashing his teeth while waiting to tear down your civilization and eat your babies.... he’s only,-and can only be- the pathetic, desperate, starving junkie thug looking to score................... and what is his drug? God is his drug and religion his fix which leads me back to-
Religion.
Yes.

to be continued...................

Look at me, Ma! Top 'o the World!

This was my quest and, yes, there is good news for all the grey hairs out there.

Affirmative! I made it up those back breaking, leg aching, killer set of steps and thought you might like the view. Something about running through a graveyard is oddly comforting yet difficult to explain. Perhaps it's the fact that if I keel over and croak on the spot they'll most likely just dig a hole and drop me in because it would be a GENUINE BITCH to have to haul my corpse all the way back down.

I'm getting younger all the time.

Even the graveyards in Japan are crowded.

BTW- I just kind of liked this shot so...............please don't blame me if evil spirits start crawling out of your computer screen..............it was your fault for looking.

In Praise of Carmen Sternwood

I recently re-watched Howard Hawks’ “The Big Sleep” (based on the Raymond Chandler novel of the same name first published in 1939) for about the 53rd time and afterwards I was shook by a vague uneasy empathy I quite suddenly felt, struck by my very fresh sorrow for a lost little girl.

First the quick background for the uninitiated. The labyrinth plot is initially set into motion by a blackmail scam- a sickly, crippled, near-dead, filthy rich but surprisingly human and strangely honorable tycoon hires the detective Philip Marlowe to get to the bottom of the most current threat to his fortune. It appears that he has two young daughters (sibling heiresses both) who Marlowe (and Chandler) sum up well,
“Both pretty and………” pause while Old Man Sternwood replies, “Go on, sir.”
“…both pretty wild.”

As the story unfolds we find that the eldest, Vivian, has a fairly serious gambling habit, likes to drink and has very bad taste in men but this is really nothing when compared to her younger sibling Carmen and her…..how shall I say……….appetites.

Written by Chandler and performed by the brilliant Martha Vickers, Carmen is a morally bankrupt, moronically juvenile, childishly selfish, dangerously spoiled little rich girl wrapped in a wickedly tasty package- which we instantly learn she invites almost anyone to unwrap- that continuously drips with a “come fuck me ‘cuz I’ll like it” poison. In the short reckless course of her young life she becomes willingly, deliriously involved in serious drugs and illicit pornography and it is the latter that becomes the source for the scam. The not-so-cheap thrill seeker carelessly makes herself eager prey to a sleazy photographer which in turn leads to blackmail and a string of murders –some near senseless, some not so- before the story winds back around to the most senseless killing of all the previous which, in the end, we learn has been the real catalyst for all the blood spilled and lives taken, given and thrown away.

Filled with wise-cracking tough guys, low-life degenerates, stupid thugs, dangerous sociopaths, hot girls on the make, too many guns, callous murder and a simmering sense of true moral corruption just beneath its shiny surface, the movie is well worth anyone’s 114 minutes but that’s not why I’m writing today.

It’s Carmen and, more importantly, the fact that this vapid, adolescent whore- as Marlowe himself might say- “got a raw deal” because, like many of us, I finally realized that my gal Carmen just had the uncommon misfortune to be born in the wrong era. (Spoiler Alert Ahead)

Please understand that sweet little Miss Sternwood has all the cruel animal hunger of a feline in heat mixed with a similar amount of concern for her fellow humans (which is to say precious little unless you’re feeding her or giving her what she needs) coupled with a 5 yr. old brats’ concern for consequences. As she stumbles through her empty headed existence, drug addled, drunk and carelessly reeling from one night to the next Marlowe- and we- eventually and unhappily discover that the ethically challenged heiress is not the foolish dupe, if essentially harmless child that he, at first, assumed she was and nothing more. No.
Carmen bites!

Our wicked little heiress shows her teeth on more than one occasion and in the end Marlowe deduces what her less emotionally and intellectually damaged sister has known all along but been trying desperately to cover up. Carmen not only nonchalantly destroys those around her with her corrosive toxicity, she is also more than capable but less than aware of her own taste for far more direct violence while maintaining her eerily vacant regard for the results of same.
But- call me crazy- If she had only been born now!
Rich!
Spoiled!
Drugs!
Porno!
Good God it’s like a recipe for celebrity success! It’s damn near a career path. Far from being the family outcast, repulsive personality, social pariah and psychotic murderer of days gone by, Carmen would today be receiving promotional offers and movie scripts, she’d be turning down appearance fees and modeling opportunities almost as quick as they cropped up from under the rocks. Victim of blackmail? Ha! Our sweet little gal would be hiring agents to market her cinema verite effort and lining her pockets with additional millions on the DVD sales alone.
“Carmen loves that Stern Wood!” Won’t Dad be proud!
$19.99 and you too can be all alone with her hotness giving you all she has to give. She’d be imitated, emulated, admired and, dare I say it……embraced with empathy and compassion by the empty hearted masses of our zombie population. I can now picture my Carmen as the tres chic role model for self centered little bitches everywhere and, in addition, as the object of countless masturbatory fantasies for young boys with an internet connection around the globe. Then again………………I don’t know………..I get ahead of myself sometimes.

You see I learn things from watching Marlowe who, admittedly, has some problems of his own. He too likes to drink and smoke a bit too much and, far from being immune from Carmen’s’ puerile charms, in their first meeting surveys Miss Sternwood with little more than open if wary hunger. His subsequent raging hard-on for the much more palatable Vivian conveniently saves him from any inappropriate entanglements so his vision and focus, both professional and sexual, luckily remain clear throughout. But it’s not as easy as all that.
Marlowe is a Pro and a loner, contemptuous of the Law and barely containing his distaste for convention, he lacks both greed and ambition but maintains an iron grip on his humanity and sense of duty. He’s determined to make his end right and- dammit- he’s got a soft spot for the formerly wild Old Man Sternwood to go along with his scent for the saucy, seductive Vivian. Sure he’s swimming in a world of corruption, avarice and anarchy but he seems fit for the exercise and familiar with the waters. I understand him a little.

Then some things happen along the way.
A throwaway nobody who’s made the fatal error of actually caring for Carmen commits the biggest mistake of his worthless career and pays for it with his silly life.
A tough little punk (who indeed tries to put the bite on Marlow for his own dirty money) comes to a mean little end and that doesn’t sit well on the detectives’ moral scale which, unfortunately, seems hardwired to his soul.
Marlowe gets lied to at almost every turn, beat at almost every game and roughed up more than once before he gets angry and starts to think a tiny bit faster than the vicious goons surrounding him in his wealthy, nasty new neighborhood. You may already have guessed that he beats them all in the end and wins the girls heart but to me that’s not what really matters. Marlowe knows who he is and does what he feels needs to be done, the Law, society and everyone be damned.

As for Carmen…………. well…………she escapes the noose and perhaps any real consequences but only because Chandler’s fictional world is a little too much like our real one, a place and time where the rich and privileged can and sometimes do get away with murder, literally. I mourn for Carmen.

My sad, stupid, sexy little girl. All alone in a world where she can get everything she wants and almost nothing that she needs, using those who love her and being used by everyone who doesn’t until she’s out of gas, burning through her whiplash excuse for a life like a first stage rocket whose limited function is only as a simple boost for the big boys before being thrown away so that the real business can continue.
And she takes such a pretty picture too.

Not Dead Yet

Faithful readers (OK, my wife and I……ok, ok-ME) may remember my athletic disgrace at Kurodani Temple and my subsequent pathetic defeat at the hands of Father Time. (see “Old Man take a look at my Life”) Today’s’ message of hope is strictly for those brave souls who are NOT Generation MySpace (and to clarify this difference let’s just say that if you’ve ever actually used a manual typewriter, not just seen one in the movies, kids, then this post is for you; if not then you may want to skip this but I probably didn’t even need to write that since Generation MySpace and those following are already somewhere else mutterings things like, “Dude…that’s like…sooo many words.” or “Tha fuck, Yo! This shit like… don’t even rhyme and shit!” or “GAWD… old people like….don’t even know anything….there’s like not even any music.”) and my message today is a simple one-Our youth is gone, our bodies in decline and facing the harsh reality of the law of diminishing returns but, say it loud and proud- WE AIN’T DEAD YET!
Yes I went back to slay the dragon at Kurodani, enormously painful as that act was, and can report that I’ve since ran my circuit, jumped my rope (for some period of skillful minutes) then returned home sweaty and sore but smiling, strong and, wonder of wonders, ready for more. In my 3rd week of self imposed physical discipline I discovered that most elusive of all aerobic windfalls, the second wind. Ah, the minor glory of pushing yourself to the limit and then suddenly finding at the exact moment of collapse that there is a wee bit more fresh gas left in your rusty old tank. Age be damned, I can honestly state that thus far the old bones and worn out muscles have held up remarkably well and, in fact, have improved ever so slightly on every occasion. I now look forward to my thrice weekly workout like a 16 yr. old boy looks forward to his 1st piece of sweet pussy, with my ancient and distinct advantage being that I actually know what I’m doing when I get there and can calculate exactly when I'm going to get back.

And so I can report that my bitter, ankle twisted, elderly, first day shuffle home is a distant if informative memory.
We can learn from our follies and we can be stronger than we think given the will to do so and perhaps a tiny incentive. My personal tiny incentives are the appreciative evaluations I infrequently receive from attractive females and, contrastingly, the absolute indifference radiating from smoking sexbombs that I am treated to on a much more regular basis as of late. Yea, yea, yea. I’m most definitely juvenile in that way but that particular truth doesn’t hurt me anywhere near as much as complete disdain from the fairer sex does and so I fight the tide as we must all do or try to do.
Now the News.
Although I’ve run through Kurodani on many occasions now and have walked, sat, drank, smoked and generally loitered throughout its environs on many more, for some inexplicable reason I have completely failed to notice this.

This is the 3rd stair set (the final frontier?) and somehow, perhaps unconsciously, I’ve passed by without noticing it until today when that intimidating height practically leered its bold challenge into my face. “Feeling cocky, boy?” it sneered, “then come get me.” After already jumped on these (below) this particular monster is no mean 44 yr. old feat for this kid. On this day I declined (discretion being the better part of valor) because, how can I simply state it, well.............. I’m not that 16 yr. old blueballed kid with a raging hard-on who has to jam it into the first wet hole he can find; I’m old, bold and I’m gonna take my time and nail that fucker to the wall; shoot up those steps like a bat out of hell and play “Rocky” at the top when I get there or die trying.
Yes you may have noticed, as I did, that those steps lead straight through a cemetery (one of the oldest in Kyoto as a matter of fact, the Temple was founded in 1174) and I’ll leave the symbolism for you to make of it what you will but, suffice to say, my “die trying” remark may be more realistic than I would currently like to admit. Because I can’t quite see the top from this vantage point I don’t yet know if, possibly, there may be a 4th set of leg crunchers when I get there or, who can say, maybe there’s a Fountain of Youth or Stairway to Heaven but victory goes to the brave and I have only positive strength in my heart to go along with the creaky knees.
I’m 44 with my foot to the floor baby! Oops…..sorry…….. I just got a little carried away due to the post run adrenalin dump but, fear much or not, I will share the results of my quest.
To be continued….........................................................................................