Follow Up Questions about Ayahuasca from a Stranger

So the stranger from the previous post has asked a few more questions about ayahuasca. I've told him that this should be the last of them because it takes a long time to answer. Actually, I like being asked once I'm through answering, because sometimes strangers can ask questions that nobody has asked before and it's fun to try to come up with a legitimate response from my experience.
So here are his newest questions. My answers follow each.

1.) Let us say that one has developed certain abilities of extrasensory perception through Ayahuasca (e.g. clearly seeing the spirit world, seeing the internal organs of a human body, etc.) and a long apprenticeship with a qualified, traditional shaman. And then it happens that for a numbers of year one cannot return back to the Amazon and stays in Europe not being able to consume ayahuasca.

Do then these abilities of extrasensory perception remain completely intact or must one always consume ayahuasca to keep them active?

ANSWER: I don't know that you, or I, or any other curandero, develops any special abilities. I believe the spirits give you the juice, the ability to have those "powers" temporarily, as you need them. Therefore, so long as you and the spirits were friends, I think you would be able to access those "powers" when you need them. Even without returning to the Amazon or drinking more ayahuasca. But if you abuse your spirit friends, if you use their juice, their power, selfishly, I believe you'll stop being able to get those powers when you need them. I think people who fall into the brujeria trap find this out: They may have strong powers of negativity for a while but eventually lose all their juice and boy, isn't there hell to pay when that happens!
In terms of the kinds of "powers" I've been lent, here are a couple of examples: Once, when Italo badly dislocated his ankle and some foot bones, Chepa, my ex, told me to fix it. I said I couldn't. She said the spirits would help and that she knew I could do it. So I looked at Italo's ankle and foot and for just a second it seemed like I had X-ray vision. And I saw what was wrong and how to fix it. Of course I was terrified that I'd just break his bones but something let me try and I twisted, pushed, popped and pulled and by luck everything went back into place. He was up and playing again in no time.
Now I don't have the power of X-ray vision and I don't know how to set bones so complicated that have been dislocated. But in that moment of emergency, I was lent that juice.
However, if I ever hung a shingle outside that read: Bone Setter I'm sure I'd never have that juice or power again. Remember the key words, or at least the key words I was given: Use it, don't abuse it, or lose it.
Then there was the time, not long after the spirits told me that I would always have enough work so long as I did the work well, when we were broke. The electric company was sending a man out to cut off the electricity. Madeleina, then maybe 6-years old or 7-years old, was incensed. "The spirits told you they'd take care of us. They have to!"
I told her the spirits had said I'd have the work--and I had gotten a lot--but they never promised to make editors pay on time.
She didn't buy it.
So the electric guy came to shut us down and Madeleina was wild. I finally asked the guy if it would be possible to wait 15 minutes just to appease her. And then when a miracle didn't happen in 15 minutes, he could shut us down. He began talking about some shrubs along my property line--his way of stalling a few minutes.
And then, out of the blue, I mean out of the blue, a Fed Ex or some other special delivery truck roars past our house; in two minutes he's coming back our way and pulls into the driveway. He hands me an envelope. In it was a check for a story I'd done and been paid for probably a year earlier. And it wasn't just a check, it was a freaking bank check. It was truly a miracle. And I never saw that driver before or after. I don't even know if it was a real person or just a spirit visit.
But I then asked the electric guy if he could come back in a little while and I'd go cash it and pay him in cash. He said okay and Madeleina just screamed with joy, thanking the spirits for coming through.
Could I make that happen again? Was it my power? Not a chance. I was lent that extraordinary moment by spirits.
Back to your quesiton: I don't believe people get extraordinary abilities--abilities like you're imagining. But I believe that the spirits help us out sometimes. So remain friends with them, however you can do that, if you ever get the chance to meet one or more of them. I think they help everybody all the time, even if they didn't drink ayahuasca. Just imagine how many times you might have been just about to step into the street when something simply stopped you and in that second a car you had not seen roars by. And if you had not been stopped, bam, you'd be dead.
So I think they help us a lot. I just think it's neat to get to meet them and be able to communicate with them a little.

2.) You wrote:
"And then there is Hector, a Q'ero from high in the Andes. I've never had San Pedro with him but I have seen is impossible powers."

I don't want to sound like a miracle monger, but may I ask what are these impossible powers and in what way do they manifest?

ANSWER: Hector changes me just by giving me a hug. Sometimes I break out crying, other times I just beam with joy. He's one of the special ones. Impossible powers? Well, in ceremony one night, a San Pedro ceremony that he was not running but he had done the offrenda, the offering to PachaMama prior to the ceremony, at the Temple of the Moon outside of Cuzco, three people tried to interrupt the ceremony. They were loud, vulgar. They'd driven a car right up to the place, burned rubber. Two women and a man, I think. Drunk. Actually, under the influence of the medicine I thought they were just mean spirits upset that so many people were drinking good medicine.
They kept their distance at first, just yelling, cursing, asking what kind of sex we were having, farting loudly, burping very loudly. Just crude all the way. But the man was huge. Huge. I was wondering how I was going to take him down. It was my group, after all, and so my job.
And then suddenly, the three of them were at the entrance to the cave in the Temple of the Moon and about to enter. Hector was sitting next to me, outside on a rock, maybe 30 feet from the door. I got up to stop them from entering the Temple, where an alter had been set up and some guests were still receiving medicine. But as I got up, I turned to Hector: He wasn't there. He was standing directly in front of the Temple entrance. He had one hand up, palm open, like a universal stop sign. How he had gotten there I don't know. Either amazing aikido or magic, because he'd been sitting next to me a split-second earlier.
And the man looked like he was going to crush Hector--who's pretty good sized himself. And the women were loudly egging him on. Hector didn't say a word. But his hand was an impossible force for the man and the women. They couldn't cross it and finally slunk away silently.
That was an amazing display.
Later that night, as we all sat around a fire burning the offrenda, the offering to PachaMama, he asked me for a cigarette. I got it and was going to give him my lighter, but before I could he reached into the fire and picked up a red hot stone and lit his cigarette with that. Then lit a cigarette for me with the same stone. And he didn't burn his hands. And the hair on his arm didn't burn despite having been in the fire.
When he saw my consternation he simply said that as a baby his mother had given him the gifts of fire and ice and so those spirits were his friends and wouldn't hurt him. I believe him.
So that's the sort of thing Hector can do. And if you go to Cuzco and are supposed to meet him, you will. He will be where he is supposed to be. Have confidence.

2B) You spoke about many San Pedro curanderos you know. What about powerful Ayahuasca curanderos? Are there still any living curanderos of Don Julion Llerena (Jerena)'s calibre around? Really powerful and knowledgeable Banca Ayahuasqeros?
Further you said:
"Julio, Pablo and Bertha have all passed."
What about Pablo's friend, Manuel? Is he still alive? I believe he was also of the Matses tribe.
Are there still Matses around who would have such power and knowledge in spiritual matters as Pablo had? I mean, being able talking to animals, insects, plants, etc. and doing all other extraordinary things.

ANSWER: I'm sure there are wonderful curanderos around. Julio was my teacher and so he is whom I spent most of my time with. But there are many good curanderos. I can't evaluate calibre. For the worse have great days when the spirits really help them, and even the best generally have a rotten day now and then and the spirits don't seem to be around to help them at all. When it's time to find one you will.
One of Pablo's sons was named Manuel. His best friend, Alberto, is also extraordinary, but much less accessable than Pablo.
I think the Matses are losing their special abilities. I think that when they depended on them to stay alive, many had an uncanny, to say the least, understanding of the forest and the creatures that live there. But as modern times and things are incorporated into their lifestyle they depend less on those powers and so they lose them--or they stop communicating with those spirits and become estranged.
Don't get me wrong: They are still magic in the forest compared to most everybody else. But I don't think anyone who doesn't fully depend on hunting will be as good a hunter as one who does depend on hunting to stay alive. And the same with needing to communicate with the spirits of the jungle.

3.) Is it possible to acquire through ayahuasca (OR ANY OTHER MASTER TEACHER PLANT) perfect command of any human language one desires? EXAMPLE: Let us say that I want to study Tibetan, but there is no possibility of doing so in my country. Can ayahuasca (OR ANY OTHER MASTER TEACHER PLANT) teach and grant full command of Tibetan (classical and modern, spoken and written)? Or can the plant lead you to spirit teachers who can do so?

ANSWER: I don't know. I was never given that gift. And the only time I was given a book in an ayahuasca dream--a huge metal book with metal pages into which the words/images had been etched--I couldn't read it at all. So maybe, but not in my experience. Heck, they haven't even let me get my Spanish up to speed after all these years!

4.) Can ayahuasca (OR ANY OTHER MASTER TEACHER PLANT) reveal and teach about the healing properties of plants, which exist for instance only in India or Japan and nowhere else in the world? Can ayahuasca (OR ANY OTHER MASTER TEACHER PLANT) help you find a plant with specific effects such as extending human life?

ANSWER: Again, going from my experience, and knowing I'm not a curandero, I can only tell you what my experience has been: When I was shown a huge market with spirit plants in it, I wondered what the heck I was supposed to learn there. I mean, I don't know that much about plants and this spirit plant market was full of boxes of live and dried plant material. I had no idea what the purpose was in bringing me there. The guardian who had brought me heard my unasked question and told me just to shout out a disease or disorder. I did, and immediately a couple of plants jumped up and shouted what they were. I think at least one of them had a sign with its name written in English as well. So that's how I was to use that plant market.
Now, here in the US, once in a while someone asks me to go there to try to find a solution to a problem they're having. And on those occasions where it was possible to visit, nearly all the plants that respond are plants you can get here in the United States. Someone with a serious immune deficiency asked for help. I sent them una de gato, which I knew would work, but they refused to drink it. So I went back to the market and this time the shout that came up was Collard Greens! Half a cup a day!
Which was ridiculous, of course, until I looked up collard greens and discovered that they have amazing powers for bolstering immune deficiencies.
If I was in Peru and that question was asked, I'm sure a Peruvian plant would have been the one shouting its name. But what would be the point of being told of a plant that could have helped that person that they couldn't get hold of?
I imagine Julio, however he got his plant knowledge, was pretty much always given plants to heal that he could reasonably easily go out and collect. And if you moved Julio to Japan, I think he'd come up with Japanese plants, even if he had no prior knowledge of them.
But if you are asking whether I ever met anyone who could just go into a dream and study plants in another locale, no, I never heard of that. Doesn't mean it's not possible, just something I never heard of.
As to plants that extend human life, I don't know of any, other than a good diet full of garlic and onions and spinach and carrots and broccoli and all sorts of good veggies and fruits. Those things will keep you healthy a long time. But something specific like a fountain of youth for real, like in a novel? No, don't know of it, and I don't think Julio or Bertha or Pablo had either, as they've all passed.

Have a great day, everybody!

Answers to Three Questions Raised by a Stranger

Yesterday, someone I never met wrote to tell me they thought my pgorman.com website had good information about ayahuasca. The person followed that up with these questions:

"I am greatly interested in ayahauasca as a tool for obtaining knowledge regarding healing plants and animals, the spirit-world existing parallel to ours and cleansing and healing generally - all conducted in a traditional way. I am not interested in any ayahuasca tourism or "feel-good trips" or curiosity mongering.

"But let me come straight to the point or I should rather say questions.

"1.) Let us say that a person has through apprenticeship become an ayahuasqero or curandero. Then he leaves the Amazon and moves to a place outside of South America, where neither ayahuasca nor other "teacher plants" are available. Let us further presume that he does not ingest ayahuasca nor any other psychoactive plants for 10 years.

"Will this man still retain his healing abilities, extrasensory perception, the ability to commune with the spirit-world, etc. or will he gradually loose all those abilities acquired through the years of his training as a curandero until nothing is left anymore?

"The point I am trying to make here is the following one: does ayahuasca awaken these abilities for good and then they remain with the curandero, even if he never again takes ayahuasca or will he forever remain dependent on ayahuasca as a mean to exercise his power?

"2.) Who was the most powerful and knowledgeable shaman or curandero that you ever met in your life (be it mestizo or a full-blood native one)? Is this person still alive?

"3.) The following question may sound odd, but can ayahuasca (or any other teacher plant, like san pedro, etc.) awaken the ability of seeing into the near-term future (about 10 or 14 days in advance) with perfect accuracy? EXAMPLE: Let us say that you want to know what will happen at a such-and-such place in Cuzco on November 20th this year."

Me Responding:
I waited a day to answer because I didn't want to go off half-cocked. Tonight I answered him. Tomorrow I might revise my answers but this is what came to me when I thought about the questions for a while. Mulled them over, so to say.
DEAR X:
Thanks for writing. Here's my take: When you make friends with the spirits, individual spirits that can help us in this realm because they are not constrained by freaking bodies--but at the same time are allured by our bodies--they are like any other friends: If you don't communicate for 10 years there will be an estrangement. That's just life.
The way it was taught to me, by those spirits, was that they would help me, but the deal was:
"Use it, don't abuse it, or lose it." That meant, they would supply a little extra power when needed, but I couldn't use it selfishly, or ignore it, or I would lose it. They would stop supplying it.
Spirits are beings too. They like attention as much as any other being. So if you abuse them or ignore them, they'll leave. They had full lives before they met you and will have full lives after you are gone from their lives.
Now, your question was, if you didn't drink ayahuasca in 10 years would you lose the gifts those spirits give. Not a good question, I don't think. I think that if you did not talk with those spirits--and you don't need the ayahuasca once you know them and they know you--for 10-years--it would be like any other friend: You no longer know each other. But if you didn't drink ayahuasca but remained in contact with those spirits through prayer/song/contemplation/meditation or however you did it, well, I think they'd still be your friends and offer you the gifts they initially gave you. Make sense?
Second question: Who was the most powerful shaman or curandero I ever met? My answer is my teacher, Julion Llerena (Jerena). He was a wonderful fisherman who raised his family properly and healed people daily. He never asked for anything that I know of, For all his strength he was tiny, had been shot twice in wars while with the Peruvian army, and was so so decent.
But then Bertha Grove, whom I wrote about in a series of articles for High Times in the late 1980s about the Native American Church, was brilliant. And then Pablo, the Matses headman who never heard the word curandero or shaman, well, he could probably talk with insects and have them talk back to him. He knew every plant in his part of the rainforest, had named them all, and could utilize them all.
Julio, Pablo and Bertha have all passed.
And then there is Victor Estrada and Kucho both of whom are very much alive. They are San Pedro curanderos. Kucho is young but learning well and very strong. Victor is my age, about 60, and though he's become very famous of late because of appearing in dozens of documentaries about San Pedro curing, he remains a force of nature once he enters ceremony. He is just a luminous shape-shifter and healer.
And then there is Hector, a Q'ero from high in the Andes. I've never had San Pedro with him but I have seen his impossible powers. He's my pal, in the best sense of the word, and in 10 more years might be the strongest curandero of them all.
And there are others. But this is a short list to help answer your question.
As to your third question: Can ayahuasca or San Pedro or other teacher plants open you up to know what will happen within say a two-week period?
I hesitate to answer that. Why? Because the answer is yes, but at the same time to call on those teachers to do that generally indicates a selfish desire, which is where we head into the turf of brujeria---the selfish end of curing. While it might be alright to wish that a friend gets through a difficult time in two weeks, for instance, it would be very selfish and probably very wrong to push the universe to do that. Or to allow you to see an outcome, thereby making it a done deal before it happens. I would suggest staying away from anything like that. To me, looking into the future would violate the "use it, don't abuse it, or lose it" dictum I was given. Maybe one day the spirits will change that dictum but until then, I certainly would not think of trying to ask a spirit to give me a hint of what will happen in the future other than maybe a direction to head in for the next layer of work.
And that's what I'm thinking about in terms of those three questions this Wednesday night, just before a thunderstorm hits us here in bucolic Joshua, Texas.
Have a great night, everybody.

One of the Things the OWS Crowd is Protesting

People often ask, on various forums I visit, what the hell the Occupy Wall Street crowd actually wants? Those people are used to specific demands: Better pay, less hours, no more sexual advances from bosses and so forth. And the Wall Street occupiers are not always vocally adept at explaining what the problem is. But I'll tell you what the problem is, at least in small part. It was about banks, being told they were making too much off credit card and debit card swipes that stores had to give up to them, deciding to charge people for using debit cards to access their own money. These are banks that are not paying a penny on the billions of dollars in checking accounts they regularly loan for good interest. So they make money on your interest, and then they decided to charge people for using their cards to get their money. Well, with enough of a spot light on them, Bank of America, and a couple of others, decided to table that fee at this time. Let's be honest: They won't lose sleep over losing a couple of billion in lost fees to stores for the right to use debit cards. Because there would be many many more billions lost if people didn't shop with debit cards--and go overdraft at $35-$39 per.
Then some people ask "Show me a banker who committed fraud. You guys want to put bankers and Wall Street bigwigs in jail, but for what? Show me the crime!"
And the easiest answer is Wachovia, recently eaten by Wells Fargo. Between 2003 or 2004 (and I will look it up if you challenge me because I've written about this in 10 freaking places) and 2007 or 2008, Wachovia admitted not putting anti-money-laundering processes in place. Which means what? It means that in those four years, whenever they started and ended, Wachovia accepted, from Mexico, $374 or so BILLION dollars into the United States. Now, let's be honest: Does anybody think that the poor farmers and malquiladora workers in Mexico were sending more than 1/3 TRILLION dollars into the US to help support their illegal relatives who made it here?
I didn't think so.
So what was that money?
Well, it turned out that that money, $374 or so BILLION dollars, about One Hundred Billion dollars a year, was being sent by mom and pop money senders in Mexico to Wachovia--which charged a fee to accept it, of course.
That was all drug money. ALL OF IT. Not one penny has ever been sent from Mexico to the US from family to family legally. Money gets sent from Mexican workers in the US to Mexico, not the other way around.
And Wachovia admitted they ignored the anti-money-laundering rules to make a profit. And then they paid a total of $178 or so Million for the transgression, without anyone going to jail for the $374 billion in laundered money.
That's the kind of greed the OWS and me and a lot of you are protesting. If I sold five books on paypal and customers didn't get them I'd go to jail for interstate fraud. Launder, and admit you laundered, $374 BILLION dollars for the drug cartels and get fined $178 or so million.
That's corporate greed. That's tactile. That money would have fed everyone in the world for 10 freaking years.
And then there's the hot story on Huffington Post today, explaining that since the US govt decided to give people on unemployment and other worker or government subsidized programs (I say that because I hate when people refer to Social Security or Medicaid or unemployment as a government hand out when we pay weekly for those) their due monies on debit cards that are recharged monthly, banks are charging people to use them. Which means if say, you work for $500 a week, and then get laid off and then get maybe $250 a week in unemployment insurance that you paid for--along with your boss, nothing from government--and you make more than 4 transactions per month (Mortgage, car, electric, water, insurance, is five, and most people have double that), the bank might take $1.50 to $3 per additional use. The bank already is earning interest on the money put into your account which earns no interest. They got theirs. And nobody is gonna begrudge them that.
But charging you to access that money--which costs nothing, effectively, and which has already earned them interest--is a freaking rip off. And anybody who denies that is a liar.
So that's what OWS and ME are angry about. I'm angry about banks that put through the largest bills first and then tell you your 8 small charges were overdrawn, and it's gonna cost you $39 each. That's not banking. That's not loan sharking. That's beyond the pale of human decency.
So the next time somebody asks you: What the hell are the freaking Occupy Wall Street scum after, give them a copy of this post for a start. Cause this is the very basic root: Greed beyond the ken. Greed beyond belief.

A Little Help from My Friends, Please

Okay, so here's the deal. As noted a few pieces back, I just discovered the "stats" button on this blog. I guess it's been staring me in the face for four years, but I still didn't see it. What's that saying: "None are so blind as those who refuse to see?" Something like that.
So now I realize that somehow, Magic Mushrooms in India is the all-time favorite piece of people who read my blog. About 10 percent of all hits have been to that piece. But how? How the hell do you find it? I mean, you could query the right key words but what the hell would they be: Magic Mushrooms in India...maybe. But I wouldn't guess that so many people would figure that out. More consternating is that the second most read post of all time is Swim Team 101, about my single misadventure on my high school swim team--at a competition at which one of the opposing teams was buck naked with shaved balls. Who shaved their balls? Someone at a catholic high school had that as his or her job description? No wonder there are occasional problems with adults taking advantage of kids.
"No sir, I didn't abuse Jonny. I did pick up his penis and carefully shave his scrotum--very carefully--but that was my job description..."
Who applies for that job?
Okay, after that, most of the most read blogs are about ayahuasca, which is connected to my book, which you all should have read and be quoting by now, copiously, in all manner of circumstances. For instance, if someone asks "How are you?" you might answer, "I thought my head would explode if I didn't get those snakes out!"
They won't know what you mean but they'll still be impressed.
So here is the question: I have long wanted to write a book called The Dad Blog Book. It would have a nice intro to set the stage, and then be a collection of cleaned up pieces from the blog about being a dad in Texas. A single dad with an estranged wife/ex-wife, living with his kids on an acre and a half in bucolic Joshua, Texas. It would have farm animals, crazy kids, live-in 16-year-old girlfriends for 17-year old boys--my sons--and that pesky ex-wife's new babies.
I'd clean up the pieces a bit, then have an editor go over them--or four editors, as in Ayahuasca in My Blood--and I might put in a few new pieces, but it would basically be the story of a single dad trying to raise kids in the era of the blog. And a lot of those pieces have recipes in them, which I know are fantastic recipes. So that would be a plus for those people who like to cook.
Would anybody buy that?
If you answered yes, then would you sponsor it? Counting designer, art, editors it's at least $8,000 which I don't happen to have.
Okay, so no sponsors. Just trying. Let me know.
Or, should I do a book with funny stories like Swim Team 101 and Ganja on the Ganges and Lengua and Magic Mushrooms in India, What Gringos Expect from a Trip to the Amazon, Cooking a Jungle Feast and The Feast of San Gennaro?
Let me know, okay? I'm just trying to figure out where to put the energy, and since you're my most loyal readers, I thought I'd give you the option.

What I Was Thinking About in the Car Today

So I was in my car. I'd just done my exercises which Doc Gritter wants me to do to get my blood pressure down--along with the freaking meds he has me on--which was that I'd walked fast for about 2 1/2 miles. One half mile this morning in the local park, then another 1/2 half mile in the park--2000 steps--and then a trip to HEB supermarket where I park as far away from the entrance as is humanly possible--200 big steps--and then run in and out of aisles till I hit 1000 steps and then back to the car. Then to Walmart, where the parking lot is even bigger and I walk around the 5-acre building a couple of times, then shop, another 2000 steps, making 2 1/2 miles.
Okay, it's not the same as when I was younger and did 1000 crunches daily, plus 300 pushups in 75 push up bursts, plus rode my bike 15 miles daily, plus played handball 2-3 times a week for 2 hours, plus played softball with the Bonghitters from High Times twice a week during season, plus made a point of walking 15 flights of stairs a day. Okay, so I'm getting old. And I had that little heart attack. And I had that intestinal explosion that almost killed me and then the two further operations which fixed me, sort of--including a fake belly button because they had to cut the real one out, which Madeleina thinks is fantastic!--and the two flesh eating staph infections and all the rest. Wonderful freaking life, tell you the truth: You have no idea what health is till it's severely compromised. I mean, I try to run and my body just falls down. After the three major ops on my belly, my bottom half has no idea what my upper-half is doing. They just don't know each other anymore. Which is why I'm walking. I'm trying to get them to associate with one another again. Don't know if it's working and do know that I'm gonna buy a new pair of sneaks tomorrow because my feet hurt a lot--not to mention my freaking ankle where when it broke a few years ago I didn't have the cash to have the pin put in, which hurts not just a lot but a REAL lot.
I do know that walking more makes me do everything more vividly. More intentionally. I don't just stand up, I STAND UP and walk to the bathroom or the laundry room. I don't lollygag while shopping, I race through it.
And I cough a lot. I think I'm getting rid of a lot of stuff that could give me cancer, which I don't want, but still smoke two packs a day, so am probably pushing that envelope more than I should.
So today, after my walking, I was driving to Two Bucks, my liquor store. It's 23 miles from my house, and is the nearest one to my dry county. In the last couple of years, Johnson County--along interstate 35, the place where all the drugs from Mexico through Laredo are stored until they're broken up for shipments across the midwest--has allowed the sale of beer and wine at a few select places, and the sale of drinks at 3-4 bars owned by the local judges, but if you want a bottle of bourbon or vodka, you still have to drive to the next county, Tarrant, to get one.
So I drive there daily at the end of my errands to buy my 4 minis (1.6 ounces, each) of bourbon and then drive home. And on the way home I drink part of one of them. And I often wonder what a cop would do if he found me with an "open bottle" in the car--a big no-no here in Texas--and if that open bottle happened to be just the size of one drink. I mean, how the heck would he present that to a judge? "Your honor, this man had an open bottle, which I confiscated, while driving." And then when he showed the judge a bottle that contained 3/4 of 1/6 ounces, how would the judge rule? It's not the same as having a liter in your lap, know what I mean?
Anyway, I was driving to Two Bucks liquor store and realized I was going 70 in a 65 MPH zone. I slowed down. My 4-cylinder was probably breathing heavy at that speed anyway. But for a second I imagined a cop coming up on me and stopping me and coming to my window and asking "What's your hurry, old man?"
And these were a few of the answers I imagined responding with, none of which would probably have gone over well:
"Well, officer, the bottle of bourbon in the glove compartment is almost empty and I was trying to make it to the liquor store before it closed."
"Well, officer, I just stole this freaking car and I'm trying to get as far away from the scene of the crime and I can as fast as I can."
"My freaking wife is annoying me to death, so I'm trying to get to the gun show to pick up a throw-away piece."
"I'm gonna be Jonesing real soon if I can't get my hand on some meth in the next few minutes."
"I'm short just a little fertilizer for the back yard bomb I'm making and the damned garden center closes in 15 minutes!"
"One of my halogen bulbs burned out and my poor pot plants are gonna freeze if I don't get another hot bulb in that grow room soon."
"I left the six-month old alone while I went drinking and suddenly realized it's been a couple of hours. I'm sure the pit bull took care of her, but then I remembered I forgot to leave the pit bull's food out..."
"I'm trying to get to your house to have sex with your wife and realized you've only got a couple of hours left on your shift..."
"Just wanted to see what sort of speed the cars my tax dollars paid for your car could get..."
Have a great night, everybody.

Probably the Only List You'll Ever Get from Me

Okay, so I'm not a big list guy. At least not a guy who writes down lists. When I go to Peru, for instance, I don't make a list of things to pack. I just get stuff washed and then pack the night before I'm going, or sometimes on the morning I'm leaving. When I have to re-up my medical kit for myself and my guests, I look through it, see what's old or what I'm low on, then go to the pharmacy and buy it.
The biggest challenge is getting ready to head to the jungle. To muster stores and equipment and particularly fresh food for 60-75 meals a day for a week takes a lot of thought. But I just stuff it in my head, imagine everyone needing to eat and then picture what they might like to eat, then head to the market to buy it.
It's chancy, I know, but I'm generally on the money and have a little left over in both dry goods and produce to give to the staff and jungle neighbors.
Now I do keep one list for myself: My monthly bills. When I get them and pay them, I put a check next to them for that month. It's just a little sheet of yellow paper with the words "mortgage, car insurance, home depot, IRS, water, electric, phone, television" on it and the faster I check them off the better I feel.
But for some odd reason, during the last few weeks I've been a bit off kilter. I'm getting a lot of work done but also wasting a lot of time. So I thought that to remedy that I ought to make a list of things I need to do daily. And I think it's a pretty good list so I'm gonna share it with you. And then maybe I'll write a book based on the list called IMPROVE YOUR WORTHLESS SELF LIST BOOK or something. Just kidding.
So here's the list of things to take care of daily:
Take care of intellect (read/consider)
Take care of family
Take care of work
Take care of spirituality
Take care of body
Take care of business
Take care of fun
Take care of friends
And when I do all that stuff--even if it's small stuff, like bringing lunch for Madeleina and snacks for Sierra and Alexa to Chepa's house at 7 AM--well, it feels like a good day's work. Today's work, for instance, was collecting info and doing a couple of interviews for a story I've nearly got done and will finish over the weekend. Today's business was wrangling with the local tax collector over what I think is a lousy appraisal (no clear winner yet) and in a few minutes going into my weekly alternative newspaper and picking up my check.
On the way I'll take care of body with walking a couple of miles to get the blood going.
So there it is. The only list you'll probably ever get from me, but it's a good one.

House Full of Empty

So a friend and I, she's in the same business as me, but in the magazine editing end of it--and she's brilliant, were feeling a little blue that we live so far apart that she can't just stop over and bitch about a new issue or whatever now and then. Because we talk well together. And I noted that further than that, I don't have any friends nearby my house here in bucolic Joshua. I do have my family, and that's the bomb, but they're not always here. This is how it was the other day.
On the other hand, Chepa has been busy with some legal papers for one of her sisters for about two weeks, so I've been taking Sierra to school and picking her up a lot and that's been a lot of fun. Not tonight, as I've come back from Walmart to find no one here. When I left, Italo was sleeping, Taylor, his daughter, was climbing on him with a large bag of tiny marshmallows close to her breast; Sierra and Madeleina were talking about the fish we just fed with a good loaf of bread at the new local park. I still had to do my walking and shopping, so I left for an hour and then came home to a house full of empty. In New York that probably wouldn't have happened unless I wanted it to happen.
Oh, well, it's just life. But I used to love coming home from driving a cab and seeing Clare and Chuck, who initially stayed with Phil and I, and then lived next door with Suzy and Eli, and Chuck and I would just spend an hour blowing a joint talking about our fares for the night. Never seemed to get old because each fare was a bit different. As is each story, each issue, each problem.
So I'm gonna throw some chicken thighs on, and a little basmati rice with garlic and then some asparagus or spinach, or maybe a fresh cucumber. I'll see when it's time for that.
If I had a choice, the house would be quiet in the day and then jam packed at night.
Have a good one, everybody.

With Sierra

Okay, I'm gonna tell you, if you don't already know, that I love my ex-wife Chepa's babies. I adore Sierra and Alexa. And though they're not mine, I love them like they were. And those of you who have read this blog know about the time she came running after me screaming, "I have a bike...I'm putting on my shoes...P Garman, wait for me..." while my son Italo, who needed time with me, said, "Dad, if you bring Sierra, I'm not going anywhere." That was one of the cruelest moments of my life and still bites me like a viper whenever I think of it. I let that child beg for my company, beg to be included and left her out.
I had to, because Italo needed my time that day. But I still feel the pain.
So now when I have the chance, I take it with her. For the last couple of weeks I've been going over to Chepa's at 7:15 AM so that the kids can see/hug me, and then I take Sierra to school. I can never make up for that day two years ago. I'm sure she'll go to a psychologist some day to say she feels abandoned, though the won't remember why, but I will. Because she was.
On the other hand, when I pick her up from school, she's just like any other 5-year old. She wants attention, things, food, drink.
Today was no exception. I was finishing a story that's going to press tonight when Chepa called to say she was stuck in Fort Worth and could I pick Sierra up. Instantly my heart leapt, then fell. Yes I could, but no I couldn't. Work demanded I be home for rewrite. Still, with Chepa unable, I would have to go.
Fortunately, my boss called with the rewrite notes 40 minutes before Sierra got out of school. So I did the rewrite and got there a little late. But once with her, Sierra acted like a spoiled kid. She demanded to ride on one of those carts that are so big you can't manouver in the aisles. And we did. And we bought things like marshmallows that I never buy. And toys. And other stuff. And you know what? When I started to get fed up I just laughed at myself. Cause she's Sierra a 5-year old who came out of my wife's belly, and even though she's not mine we're closer than two threads in a carpet. So I laughed at myself for getting uptight, then cut loose and started laughing with her.
Sometimes you just have to let the rules go.

Just Showing Off

Okay, just a silly post here. My book, Ayahuasca in My Blood--25 Years of Medicine Dreaming, generally occupies a place on Amazon.com in the Shamanism section somewhere between the top 35 and 100 books. When it falls below the top 100 I sort of panic. Can't do anything about it, just panic that no one will ever buy another copy. But then there are days like today, when it's at #9 in the Shamanism group and about #23,000 of all the few million books they have for sale. So there it is. I'm hot today. That's cool, I think.
I hope you're all hot at what you're doing as well. Hope you're all having a great great time.

Becoming a Shaman

Someone new to a forum on which I occasionally post has been asking to be put in touch with a real shaman so that he can finish a process of death/rebirth that he is sure he not only needs but which will make him a shaman. I've watched this post and the responses for a couple of weeks and didn't add my useless two cents till today. Today he finally said that he's 19 years old and has been having difficulty fitting into his world for two years, though he says he's had shamanic events in his life pointing toward becoming a shaman for years. I don't doubt him. He seems like a genuine person. But at the same time he's a genuine 19-year old, and, well, because I'm old I'm allowed to say that all 19 year olds are torn between this and that. (I'd add that most 60-year olds are as well, but you all already knew that.)
So today I decided to toss my useless two cents in and here they are. I guess I waited till my heart responded, rather than the dad in me...

Two years? Heck, I've been doing this for 30 some odd years, the last 27 with ayahuasca and San Pedro, with marvelous teachers to guide me. I've been dead and reborn 20 times and I'm just a little baby when it comes to shamanism or being a shaman. This sort of work can garner overnight results in a lot of healing ways, but I don't know that death and rebirth solve anything for the individual--particularly in genuine clarity. I think the experience cleans out a lot of rubbish and gives you a kickstart but you remain you--or at least I remained me--and that meant with each cleansing and heart/eyes more wide open, I simply saw more things to repair....I will root for you but don't want you thinking that if you can get to the death/rebirth with a genuine shaman and genuine and wonderful medicine that it will be an end of any sort. It's more likely to be a new beginning and one fraught with even more difficult realities than what you're currently working with. Which is fine, because you may also have an extra dollop of strength to deal with that new reality. But then after the next death, rebirth, the next hill is higher still....If I ever met anyone who reached the highest mountain, they certainly didn't tell me. Because in the end, even shaman are just fishermen or bankers or wives and mothers and fathers who have to pay bills, change flat tires, get annoyed at kids...it's just living and living wonderfully. Be joyful if you can, every day that you're allowed to wake up and see the white magic illuminating the world, the green magic coursing through the verdancia, the red magic pumping the blood through your veins, and the black magic, the magnetic power of the universe, holding it all together in a way you can appreciate.
Good luck. You've a wonderful journey ahead of you.

In the Supermarket

Okay: This is the second post of the day, just seconds after the first. But something happened that I missed by just three minutes and I am so angry with myself for not seeing it and taking care of it that I want to write it out so that I will not forget next time.
I was in a grocery store and in front of me on line was a nice young woman--I later found out she's a local teacher, though not at my daughter Madeleina's school--who had bought a bunch of what was obviously going to be dinner. She had lettuce, onions, garlic, a big tomato, some chopped meat, a small sour cream and a can of refried beans, a can of red salsa and some tortillas. So she was a mom going home to make a fast and inexpensive dinner for her husband/kids.
Well, she paid with a check but didn't have her driver's licence so the store wouldn't accept it. She did have her Burleson, TX teacher's badge, with her picture, but the store wouldn't accept it.
She was very embarrassed when a manager was called over and she was told they knew her but corporate wouldn't let them accept a check without a driver's license.
I waited patiently in line, and when she apologized I told her not to sweat it, this sort of thing happens to everyone.
And a few minutes later, when the lady's order was cancelled and I was finished and in my car it suddenly hit me that I should have just paid for the lady's groceries. It was a lousy $14 bucks or so. I just didn't think of it till I was already in my car.
So now I feel like a schmuck for not paying more attention. That poor lady went home without dinner and then probably had to go back out to rebuy that food to feed her kids, and I could have handled it for her if I'd just been thinking more clearly and less selfishly. Dammit. I hate catching myself messing up.
Next time I come on that sort of thing, I will try to remember to simply handle it.

Somebody Asked...So Here's My Answer

Someone I don't know got hold of me today--not unusual--and suggested that if the ayahuasca dieta called for no salt or sugar--because the spirits are slightly repelled by those things, among others--then why do we need salt or sugar in real life when not on an ayahuasca dieta?
I answered the best I could. Maybe tomorrow I'd answer differently, but here's what I wrote:

Dear X: The human body needs salt. It retains the water in your system, keeping the fluids in your body inside your body. And good salt--I mean real sea salt, which is expensive--has a lot of trace minerals and so forth in it. Without enough water in your system, down goes the electrolyte system and then you can't think straight. Fruits and their natural sugars replenish those electrolytes--as, to a certain extent, does sea salt.
So, in a perfect world, you might get what you need salt-and-sugar-wise from eating fruits and, like a lot of Amazon indigenous, getting their salt from eating salt-heavy clay--just like a lot of US southerners eat a couple of handfuls of dirt now and then.
But we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with information to all our senses and so we need much more salt/electrolytes/natural sugar than hunter/gatherers ever did. Most people on the river that I know, even now, work hard three/four hours daily and then don't work at all most days. Westerners like myself get up at 5 AM, read newspapers, feed animals, get kids ready for school, drive to school, get work done for 8-10 hours, go to the store, buy food, make food, feed kids, get laundry done and so forth--a reasonably full 16 hour day, 7 days a week most of the time. So our needs are simply different.
Now, you got to know that I eat maybe two burgers from Sonic a year. No fries or soft drinks ever. Fresh fish or mussels/scallops three times a week, a little chicken--maybe a thigh or a quarter of a large breast--a couple of times a week, and then beef maybe once a week. Maybe eggs once a week. Rice with garlic a couple of times a week, bread maybe once a week or twice if I'm dying for comfort food, fresh corn, 4-5 helpings of veggies daily, lots of garlic, lots of onion, spinach, tomatoes, green beans, asparagus, zuccini, yellow squash, broccoli, cauliflower.
If I didn't drink at all I'd be in great shape. Happen to like my little bit of bourbon most days and a couple of glasses of wine. I also drink Una de Gato with Sacha Jergon pretty religiously--just a couple of ounces daily, but it keeps immune system up and keeps the liver clean.
Do I need a lot of salt? Not really. But there is a little good sea salt in the water in which I steam veggies, even if I don't add it later. And always a bit of salt on fish, beef, chicken, though it's down from what it was five years ago and that's down from what it was 25 years ago. I don't exercise as much so I don't need as much.
But I have to hold my ground on what I say about the dieta. If Amaringo was told by his spirits that they don't like salt or sugar, then that's perfect for him. The spirits that hang around me want me to indulge in everything. They're freaking rock 'n rollers who want to taste, touch, feel things to the extreme. They hate it that I don't drink so much anymore. They hate it that I've cut down on cigarettes. They can't believe I have not done cocaine for nearly 30 years.
The spirits that hang near me want the visceral. They don't have bodies and cannot feel the physical. So they want to step into my body and feel it all. And I mean all of it. Just for a second or two.
And they love salt and sugar (which I hardly ever have) and wish I would do more, just so they could experience it.
So, lesson? Different people, different spirits. And each spirit wants a different thing from a human host, even if we're just hosts for a little while.
Any of this making sense?
I would never cut salt out of the diet of the people I take to the jungle. I couldn't. They'd all fade after the first half day of walking 5 miles in the rainforest if they didn't have a little salt with their lentils and avocados and eggs and rice and river fish.
But this is just me talking and I've got no special pipeline to anything. I just do the best I can with the info I'm given and with the way I was taught.
I hope this ramble somehow helps you muddle through it.

Here's the Deal then...

So in the last week I've been feeling like crap. My blood pressure, kept in check for the last several months--for the first time in my life--is running 145./93 or so, every day. Don't like that, especially since I'm taking the meds. But lately my eyes feel like they're so full they're popping. I'll get a glaucoma check as soon as I can swing it.
Some of it might just be getting old. Some of it might be me hiding in a shell. How? I don't know. But I still might be doing it. So I don't like feeling like death is getting close. Not in the playbook that I wrote, anyway. I've too much to live for. I don't drink a lot anymore--more than I should but pretty darned tame if you ask me. And I'm putting my smokes out at the halfway point more than half the time, sometimes less than that. Still, if I'm screwed, it's me who did it.
On the other hand, I am not going easy. I'm gonna be strong and okay. I'm fuggin Irish and they'll get me when they get me. Meanwhile, I'm gonna be on that freaking wanted list and damn those who don't know that. Come and get me, Mr. Death, if you got the balls to deal with me once you got me.
Arrogant, no?
Fuck them. Go out kicking and screaming. Do not go gentle into that good night....

Simple Lesson from the Spirits

Someone I know and respect wrote to say they were having a difficult time living with what they learned through the spirit of ayahuasca in the real world. I understood. I think it's sometimes very difficult living by the spirits' lessons on this plane. But this is where our living is done, and the spirits often have good advice, even if it's difficult.
In my own case, I try my best. For instance, I'd like to be a perfect father, but am not. Could I be? I don't know. I try, and then try harder when I fail. I try to see--and this is a spirit lesson from years ago--no, try to be my kids to see what it is they need. Not what I think they need, because that's me making assumptions, but when there is a problem, to be them, to see with their eyes for a moment, and when I do that, and when it sometimes work, then I suddenly know what it is I need--or rather, what they really need.
Some things are fixable, some not. I wish my wife/ex-wife's babies, Sierra and Alexa, were my babies. But they are not. So I can either resent that, or be as joyful as possible over the fact that I get to see them a few times a week and that that time is valuable and precious to me--and to them as well, I hope. (Last night the girls, plus my grand baby Taylor had me picking them up and spinning them and having them climb all over me for an hour. That was perfect. It wasn't all day, and it wasn't today, but it was grand last night.
So I wish my family weren't broken, but it is. And it's probably my fault but that's all a long time ago and these days I try to make the most of my time with them. And though it's funny, although Madeleina is the only one of my kids who live with me--and then she also lives with Chepa a lot too--I still make enough food, or have enough food ready to be able to make every night just in case the gang shows up. It might be an extra chicken in the oven, or enough rice ready and enough veggies in the fridge, or enough extra portions of what I'm eating, to feed them all. And a lot of days they don't come over. A few days a week I'm eating alone when Madeleina is at Chepa's.
But I don't mind. I don't get blue over it. I just think of how much fun it is when they do show up and so I prepare for them with a lot of joy. And if they don't, well, they've got their own lives to live. That's fantastic. If they do, they usually show at dinner time, so it's either in the oven or ready to go in a few minutes.
That was a spirit lesson. More joy, less pain. Having the extra food ready is no real trouble for me at all. If it doesn't get used one day it will get used the next or wind up with Boots the Wonderdog. But having them know that they are welcome and thought of and considered in my daily life, well, I think that means a lot to them. I think it brings them joy to walk in and ask "What's cooking?" and be told "something good." I don't think it would bring them as much joy if I only had what I like in the fridge and never had anything ready for anybody else and they walked in and asked "What's cooking?" and I said, "Nothing. You didn't tell me you were coming over."
I think you just have to do the best you can, and if you're lucky enough to get some spirit lessons, well, they won't just automatically fit into your life, but I find them pretty generally invaluable in the long run.

Dream

I don't generally bother you with my dreams. I don't know if I've ever written one here. But last night was unusual. Simple, hard, unusual. I woke up after it began at 11 PM. Then again at 1:10 AM. Again at 3:30 AM, then 4:15 AM and then at 5 AM, when I got up for good. I had the same dream the entire night. It never stopped. That alone was amazing.
For being so long it was a very simple dream.
The world was a moonscape. There was no life. No matter where I looked, there was not a sign of life. Not that it was dead, it simply was not alive and never had been. I went everywhere, including to other planets. Nothing. Not even our sun, just the very vaguest of illumination, enough to see that there was nothing. I woke up feeling blue.
I got up, pee'd, drank some water, went back to bed.
The same nothing. In fact almost a mottled nothing. Just a mottled colored planet surface on all the planets.
I traveled everywhere again and then woke up again. I was crying a little. It was a sad place with no life.
When I began to dream the dream again, I discovered a couple of others, like me, who were just as sad at the absence of life as I was. When we began to talk, we began to see a couple of shoots pop out of the ground. They quickly grew into trees on the otherwise barren landscape.
I woke up amazed, drank more water, went back to bed.
This time I saw a lot of people. They were arguing over the trees that had sprouted. Someone told them to stop being selfish. Just start being nice and sharing the trees and see what happened.
When they did, a lot of trees began to fill the landscape. And buildings appeared, and cities and rivers and the sun. And everybody was pretty happy that the world was back to being the world again, full of life, full of a bit of danger, full of energy.
I woke again, pee'd, went back to bed, sure that was the last of it.
It wasn't. This time people were back to being people: Some nice, some selfish. Whenever they were selfish things died or just disappeared and went back to just being not alive.
I began to tell people that though it sounded like some awfully written science fiction book, the fact was that we apparently had to do a couple of things to keep the world vibrant: We had to first accept that we needed to agree that the world would only be the world if we all allowed ourselves to believe it was full of trees and animals and people and so forth. And then we would have to be decent to each other to keep that image of the world alive.
Someone said they'd already read a story like that. I told them it didn't matter. What mattered was that to keep the beautiful world we'd have to do our best to get along.
Most people agreed.
I woke up again for the last time. I went to the kitchen and put the coffee on, then brushed my teeth, and thought about the dream. Really corny, I know, but I really had it. So I guess I must believe it on some level. What I really believe in normal hours is that the world will be beautiful and full of vibrant life whether people are here or not. What I think the dream was showing me was that if we're not nice, not decent, then we'll live in a world where we can't see that vibrant life. Where our lives are just a lifeless, mottled moonscape.
Very very corny.
But it was also very cool to be shown it from that perspective.
Ain't life grand?

Bought Madeleina a Cell Phone Today

Well, against my wishes, I bought my daughter, Madeleina, a cell phone today. Just a throw-away that's to be used in emergencies. With a card that gives her five minutes a day for 60 days. That's 300 minutes, total, for two months. I'm not a fan of cell phones and don't have one and am always hard-pressed to use one when it's handed to me. Not that they don't have their utility: Now that every stinking pay phone in the world has disappeared, having a cell phone when you get a flat on the highway is a good thing. Or when your plane has been diverted to another city and you know people are going to drive two hours to pick you up.
So I recognize wonderful value there.
On the other hand, as a driver in Texas who has to work to avoid having half-a-dozen wrecks a day because people are driving with their knees while talking, calling, texting....well, I don't think they're cool. And to listen to people in the supermarket talk to someone somewhere else about, "Well, the Coke isn't as cold as the Pepsi, so would you rather...?" or "I'm here, hon. I'm one aisle away from where I was when you called me a minute ago...I didn't get to the eggs yet..."
Okay, so I'm old school and a Luddite but if anyone ever asked me those questions, well, I guess I'd have to stop talking with them.
Now, because I don't have a cell phone, when I approach someone and it's sort of an airport or flat tire emergency, I generally ask if they'll allow me to use their cell phone for $10. Most people say yes, cause that's nice pay for a local call. And I don't mind paying it. I don't want to be a mooch.
My daughter, on the other hand, with band, has to sometimes call to say she's going to be back at the school at 1 AM, not midnight, and so I generally try to have her have a couple of bucks at the ready for when she borrows someone else's cell phone to make that call.
But then last night happened. Last night started early, about 8 AM. Chepa was leaving to see her boyfriend--father of Sierra and Alexa, who now lives in Amarillo. Madeleina had an early day off, about noon, but then a 4 hour marching band practice, then a change into uniform, then a football game. Which meant she'd be getting off about midnight. (I am livid at the idea that the band can make freshmen in high school stay till 8 PM twice a week, then have those kids pull a 16 hour Friday, every Friday during football season, and then, like today, about every three weeks have them return to school on Saturday at 9 AM for band contests that last till 11 PM. That's a 12 hour day Thursday followed by a 16-hour day Friday, followed by a 14-hour day Saturday--all for a lousy high school credit. Hell, I was a star writer and decent athlete and in every play my high school put on while I was there and never never got home past about 6 PM--enough time to hold down a 24 hour a week job to pay for high school and still get my work done.)
Sorry for the rant. Back to the story.
So yesterday morning I told Madeleina to get a ride from her friend Sierra, who lives about 2 miles away and who stays her now and then for an over night sleepover. Madeleina said she was embarrassed to ask. I reminded her that I get up at 5 AM and generally am asleep by 9:30, so if she wanted me to pick her up she'd have to call repeatedly until I woke up.
She said she couldn't borrow a cell phone to make 20 repeated calls.
I told her to call her brother Italo to pick her up.
She said she'd try to get a ride with her friend Sierra.
But while I might be the worst dad, I thought I'd better stay sober and be ready to drive when the call came, if it came. And if it didn't and Sierra's parents brought Madeleina home, then I should at least meet them in the driveway to keep Boots from biting them.
So 9 PM passed and I started watching All about the Benjamins. Then 11 came and something else came on. Then it was midnight and I called Italo and asked him if Madeleina had called him. He said no. I asked how the fuck a high school football game that started at 7 PM could still be going on at midnight? He had no Idea.
At about 12:30 I drank water, washed my face and drove to Madeleina's high school. Not a whisper in the parking lot.
At about 2 AM I drove there again. I mean, it was possible she'd gone with Sierra (a different one than her sister Sierra) to her home to sleep and simply didn't call--that would have been gutsy but not past Madeleina to do that. I drove all over that school, looking for a little lost girl but found none.
At about 3:30 I slept for an hour, trying to reassure myself that she must have gone to her girlfriend's home.
That worked till about 4:30. Then I was up and drinking coffee.
At 6, still dark, I went back to bed and slept till 6:30. Then I was up for good.
At 8 AM there was a phone call. It was from the local Brookshires' grocery store, on their house line. It was Madeleina.
"Dad, I'm at Brookshires. Can you come and pick me up?"
"Sure. Where were you last night? Why didn't you call?"
"I slept in a doorway at school. I knew you wouldn't pick me up and I didn't want to bother Italo and Sierra never came to the game and nobody gave me a ride so I slept at the school."
I flew out the door and picked her up.
I was totally freaked out, could hardly breathe, was angry at her for not calling anyone but still seeing my baby trying to tough it out in a doorway and probably being scared to death all night. I was yelling and I was crying all the way to picking her up. I was guilty, I was sad, I was thinking of being her, not me, at 14, thinking you've been abandoned and sleeping in that doorway. And I was angry that she hadn't even tried to call Italo or I.
So I guess she was brave, then scared and finally, when the sun rose, walked the mile to the supermarket and made the call. And I'm happy she's okay. No, I was so freaking happy that she was okay that I almost killed her for being so freaking selfish that she didn't make a phone call to me because she thought I would be sleeping instead of staying awake to take care of her.
And then today, having put the three stories due last week to bed after rewrite, I just tried to sleep. I couldn't but tried. And then I walked a fast mile to get my blood moving and went to Walmart and bought Madeleina her emergency cell phone. Now she can call me 20 times to wake me up.
Cause while I know she's tough enough to handle sleeping in a doorway, and while I know she's seen me do it, or sleep in a cemetery, that's not necessarily what I want for that perfect little girl.
I'm glad she had an adventure, but it almost killed me.

Fine Dining Alone

Okay, just to make you crazy: Tonight, I am eating alone. I was thinking about making a hamburger, or the good mussels I have. I was thinking a steak would be good.
I settled on the small piece of swordfish I had left over from a couple of nights ago. Maybe 6 ounces.
So I sauteed that in my garlic-olive oil (just fresh garlic chopped every couple of days and put into good olive oil to steep to have it when I need it). Then I was dreaming of my fried tomatoes with that, so I put two thick slices of organic beefsteak tomatoes into the pan as well. Everything got a good bit of butcher ground pepper.
I have left over basmati rice cooked with that garlic olive oil, so I'm using that as a starch, but minimally.
For a second veg I'm steaming spinach, then gonna saute that with thin slices of fresh strawberries and balsamic vinegar.
Now the swordfish, I've just turned it over and it's nice and brown on one side, is gonna finish with crumbled blue cheese. Then I'm gonna take that out and put in capers and a bit of lime juice to make the sauce.
The tomatoes will be turned, covered in good grated parmesan, then sprinkled with the cooking grease of garlic olive oil.
And then I'm eating.
Have a good meal everyone.

PS: Okay, so don't try that at home. Each element of the meal was almost more delicious than your taste buds could handle. Thank goodness I tried it for you. The swordfish with the capers/onions/blue cheese was way over the top of wonderland.
The spinach, garlic and strawberry slices nearly made my mouth fall apart.
The grilled tomatoes in garlic olive oil with good parmesan would kill most people.
And the basmati rice, well, it's just plain good.
Aren't you all glad you have me eating this stuff? I'd hate to find you all dead of exquisite ecstacy if you actually tried this stuff at home. But someone's got to do it.
Have a good night, all. Especially you, Morgan and Laura, cause I am thinking of you this second.

Ayahuasca--Part of the Jungle, Not Apart from the Jungle

Someone on a forum to which I occasionally post recently asked where they ought to go to drink ayahuasca for the first time. And in the message he/she was clear that he didn't want to visit markets or such, but to basically stick to ayahuasca. Well, I thought the person was a little presumptuous so I responded. This is what I wrote:

Hello: There are lots of good places to go, but let me suggest that if you skip a trip to the market, or a dozen other places, you won't have the context in which to drink. Ayahuasca is part of the Jungle, not apart from the jungle. It's just one of a million things that people who live in the jungle do, like hunting, planting fields, making their dugout canoes, swimming, fishing, cooking or going to the market. So please reconsider your preconceptions. If you want it as apart from the jungle, then go to a camp and drink the day you get off an airplane. If you want to experience it like people from the jungle experience it, then imagine it's just something done in the course of a life lived to the fullest, which includes kids playing during ceremony, neighbors showing up while brewing--a very very social time, typically, in my experience--a wife or husband telling the curandero he's singing too loudly in the middle of the ceremony; the neighbors listening to the radio of a soccer game in the background of a ceremony; heading to market the day before ceremony because someone forgot to buy enough mapachos or agua florida or having to deal with a baby who needs a toothache remedy in the middle of ceremony.
All of this is what makes the medicine--as a part of the jungle, not apart from the jungle--special. If you miss that in favor of a controlled environment, you will be drinking like a lot of Westerners drink, not like Peruvians drink.

CL: This Is Just For You

Hello, CL. This is Peter. I might be out of line here. I understand and this will be understated.
You cannot imagine how sorry I am for your loss. I kept my distance because of the love I felt. There is no credit for that. Just reality.
But I have been running through my head the possibilities of what happened last week happening and I keep coming up with zero. You didn't cause it. I didn't cause it. If you read the piece on How Guardians Work, you know what I am talking about. It should not, could not have happened. But it did.
If it all happened just for me to apologize to you, an apology so late and insignificant that it didn't need to be heard by you, that's what it was.
But someone/something/some spirit wanted us back in touch.
We had our conversation.
If that was enough, then okay.
I'm embarrassed because this is very public.
And if you never call again, I understand. You had a different life. You had a guy who loved you and whom you loved. I'm sorry for your loss.
I don't mean to be a dope. I probably am being a dope.
But the circumstances were just too out-freaking-landish not to be important. Like Italian Round-O's. Something significant.
Thanks for calling last week.
P
PS: My daughter, Madeleina (named after my mom) loves the Sherlock Holmes stuff you got in your last life. And she adores the ink well set.

Rats and Marco

Okay, my son Marco and I have spent at least part of the last 19 or so years fighting with one another. At least half my fault, some his. He's obstinate, won't do what's asked, thinks of himself before thinking of others.
On the other hand, he's also the only 23 year old in the world who would come into the house, see a stranger--to him--sitting on the couch, and then, in a completely uninhibited way, sit in my lap and put his arms around my neck.
So while he's the worst, he's the best, and I love him always.
Today he's best: I was writing when creaking began in the kitchen. I had about 10 wonderful people over for the weekend and it was glorious, and they left Sunday and yesterday. Everything cool. So this morning I was back at work at the computer when the wall behind the kitchen food cabinets began to creak. I don't mean a little settling, I mean creaking and creaking, like a rat was trying to go from inside the wall into the rear of the cabinet.
Not much I can do since rats, in my house, terrify me in a way that goes back to a childhood fear. Something devilish about them, and I just freak out. So I was not going to do more than a cursory investigation. I did. No signs of anything. And the creaking stopped.
But then it started up again.
Nothing to do but call Marco and tell him to come over and help find and kill a rat.
He didn't argue. He didn't hesitate. He just got here, opened the cabinet that I'd been too afraid to open, declare that there were no holes in the rear that would allow entry and no rat poop.
"Probably in the wall, dad. You know, from the gaps in the flooring under the house."
Then he took $20 and went to go buy a few cans of sealant. And when he comes back he'll crawl under the house and seal the cracks.
And then I'll be safe.
And not so scared.
Two nights ago I killed a black widow with an empty pack of cigarettes. No sweat. No fear. Just a spider.
But a field rat?
I'm two years old again and want my dad to fix it, quick.
Thanks, Marco.

How the Guardians Work

Okay, so you know I've been a bit upended by things that happened this week. Here's the deal, without names. And it goes to the heart of how the spirits I call the Guardians (or Guardian Angels, though I've never seen wings) work.
About 3 days ago I suddenly discovered--and I never knew it before; most of you guys know I'm an admitted Luddite with new fangled gimmickry--that there is a "stats" button on this blog. I don't know if it was always there or not, but I happened on it.
So I pressed it and was surprised to see that I could see the hits this blog got this week; what stories were most viewed on this blog (Mushrooms in India and Swim Team 101 are by far the most looked at and they're freaking old!) and so forth.
And on the stats page, which I didn't think I had ever since google ads cut me off for a burst of ad money about three years ago, it also noted which urls people came from to get here. And which key words were plugged into the computer. And on that list of key words used this week which wound up finding the blog was "peter gorman, c". (I told you, no names, but it was a name.)
Seeing that almost floored me. Utterly unexpected. This was a woman I lived with, was in love with, for a long time a long time ago. We have not been in touch for a long long time. There have been times I've been tempted but she had a family and no matter how drunk I got I never pulled the trigger (that I remember) and called. Doesn't mean I didn't think about her sometimes. She was a wonderful person. And gorgeous. And she never spat at me. Or hit me with a baseball bat. And forgave me my idiocy and emotional cruelty. I loved her for all of that. I hated her for all of that.
And to see our names together, separated only by a comma, meant she was trying to get in touch. So I looked her up--which I have not done for a couple of years, but probably do every couple of years just to see if she's doing okay--and saw--with sadness--that she's recently lost her husband.
She was very true, so I'm sure it was and is hard on her.
So I figured she was feeling rootless and trying to figure out how to get in touch.
I did not call her. Instead, I put a notice up on this blog telling her I'd love her to call if she wanted.
I woke up the next morning feeling like a predator for writing that (I was not being predatory that I knew of when I wrote it). So I took it down and chastised myself for being a prick.
A few hours later I checked the phone messages and saw her name on them. No message, but her name and a number. I looked it up: It was her hometown, or close to it.
I called the number. I got a machine and left a message--which included the fact that if this was who I thought it was I could hardly breathe.
She called and we talked. It was fantastic to hear her voice; sad beyond belief as well because she's so hurt by her loss. Like with my sister, I wish there was something I could do; there is not.
But what was strange was this: She said she had not been the person linking our names on google which wound up finding my blog. And I don't think she's a reader of the blog.
So how did I find the "stats" button and see the linked names, look her up, post a request that she call, have her notice it in the few hours it was up, and then have her call?
If I press the keywords for a month on my site, our linked names don't appear. They've only been used a few times and so only will appear in a "week" worth of stats. Not longer.
So let's go over this: I find the stats button on the specific week in the last 25 years when someone has linked my name with her. I put up a notice to call me and take it down in maybe 10 hours, but she sees it in that time and calls.
Now, when I talk about the guardians, whatever you call them, you have to realize that the odds of any of that happening are zero. Not one in a million, not one in 10 million. Zero.
But it all happened.
The guardians wanted us to recontact. For what, I don't know. But it was arranged so amazingly, so cleverly, that it is beyond description.
For me the difference between an hallucination and a real vision is that a vision is something that you could not have imagined if you'd made a list of 10,000 things that might have happened given a certain set of circumstances.
This is so far past that it's in its own ballpark.
What does it mean? I don't know. Maybe she was just being polite in responding to the blog request. I do know that some spirits somewhere thought it imperative that we speak.
And that's good enough for me.
PS: I loved hearing her voice.

Okay, On a Brighter Note...

Okay, on a brighter note, man, Madeleina, Marco and I ate well last night.
I was in the mood for salmon. But I had some left over mussels in the fridge in a nice fresh tomato/garlic/onion sauce and I didn't want them to go to waste.
So I shelled them, strained the sauce and put both mussels and strained sauce aside.
Then I cut up red potatoes--with skins--on to boil.
For veggies I cut broccoli and asparagus and par-boiled them. Then I sliced some daikon radish and red pepper strips to add later, for sauteing with the broc and asparagus.
When those things were all ready, I sauted a piece of salmon in garlic olive oil and when that was mostly done I added the four large sea scallops I remembered I had to the same pan--little salt and pep. While they were cooking I added some sesame seeds. And when the seafood was done I took it out of the pan and added the cold mussels and left over mussel juice to the pan drippings.
The potatoes were mashed nicely by Madeleina and to them we added roasted garlic and fresh basil we'd tossed into the blender.
The fish was served on the garlic-basil mashed potatoes, a bit of sauce and mussels on that, and then those sauted veggies were ringed around the plate.
Man, that was good.
It might have been the first time Marco ever had sea scallops. Madeleina didn't want them so Marco and I had two each. And when he bit into the first he paused then asked what the heck "this round thing is?"
I told him.
"Welll get more of them. Dad, these things are fantastic!"
I thought that was excellent.

Reality Check

Don't know what it is, but this week has been hard for me. I feel like I'm moving through molasses and getting nowhere fast. And I have no reason to complain: I have stories, good ones, that I'm working on and several more that I'm beginning to collect information on and my kids are all good and I got to spend some time with Sierra and Alexa this week, along with my granddaughter Taylor Rain, and that was fantastic.
So it's not work, it's not missing the kids. It really isn't money either--there was enough to pay the mortgage for next month last week and I still got enough for a can of paint I need and gas money in my wallet.
No, this is just about me and maybe a reality check. I already wrote about doing the songs and feeling like they lacked oomph. I'm dealing with that and gonna sing my way through it and keep trying to help if I can.
I think maybe it's about myself dragging myself down. I need some soul searching.
I spoke with someone I hadn't spoken with in a long time yesterday. I almost couldn't breathe at first. Whew.... Who the hell was I--am I--to be bumping into someone else's world?
Well, I'm sitting here searching for something to say and my Irish insides are telling me: You feeling sorry for yourself? Are you kidding? Get the hell into the kitchen and mop the floor. Get outside and get that paint and get the work done. Open a new folder and get one of the stories due this week started and finished. But don't just sit here full of vague remorse and self-pity you bum! Live, don't linger!
Okay, well, I'm glad I had that little chat with myself.
My mother used to say things like "You want to feel sorry for yourself? Go volunteer emptying bedpans at an old folks home. Then you'll at least have a reason to feel sorry for yourself."
Thanks, mom.

Trying to Help--Feeling Useless

A few weeks ago I was very connected to spirit. It happens when I get to my late teacher Julio's home and am around ayahuasca and sapo and nu-nu and San Pedro. When I came home there were several people who needed me to sing for them. I didn't know what "singing" for someone was until I did it, but I was asked to help people who were sick, and a dog, and so I tried. And what occurred was utilizing--or asking for permission to utilize--some of the gifts that have been lent to me over the years via medicine, particularly ayahuasca.
Now ayahuasca ain't god, no matter how you describe/define that infinite force. But ayahuasca is a very powerful ally of man, a spirit we access by drinking the essence of the vine, banisteriopsis caapi with either chacruna (psychotria viridis) or chaliponga--which I forget in Latin at this exact moment.
So I asked the spirit of ayahuasca and the spirit of the four magics I know--white magic, the light in the known and unknown universe; green magic, the magic that runs through the verdancia, whether rivers, river animals, grasses, trees and so forth on this plane and perhaps elsewhere; red magic, the magic of blood that can cause/correct diseases that runs through us humans and so many other creatures; and black magic, the thick, profound, deep magnetic magic that we call gravity that holds not only the universe but each piece of the universe, in place. And I asked the guardians I know, powerful spirits who have let me be introduced to them, to help. And I asked smoke and perfume and cama langa to help, powerful allies as well.
And so I sang for those friends of mine.
And it was strong. And even those who didn't know I was singing for them got in touch to say things were happening with their ill bodies.
And then this week, it feels like the song has no power. No oomph. Like there are no spirits to call on or if there are I certainly don't know how to call them.
I still sing. I know there is life and force and will in everything and even me just hoping someone might get better is better than nothing. But I think it's more than that, normally. Just this week, it feels weak.
Damnit.

Someone Who Appreciates Food

Well, my friend Bo was here last week. I last saw him in Iquitos about 16 months ago. He's the vet who became a US paddleball champion and wrote the Complete Book of Racketball that sold 260,000 hardcover copies a long time ago. And he's the fellow who runs the Executive Tours, taking wealthy people out to ride the rails to see what the other side of things looks like. He's a pal I met in Iquitos, Peru when I had my bar and he walked in with his legs and feet so distended I thought they'd explode. Been a friend ever since. I wrote a story about him called Renaissance on the Rails that helped me win a national journalism award and was one of three that won me a Journalist of the Year in Texas a couple of years ago.
So he was here for a few days, then split for another friend's--one of the original Microsoft guys--and then wrote me a couple of days ago that he had a friend he'd gone to school with at Michigan 40 years ago who wanted to meet me and loved food.
I said okay and then yesterday came and I was thinking of mussels in red wine and tomatoes with cilantro to go with huge sea scallops sauteed in garlic with fresh lime.
Turned out that Bo's friend didn't like scallops or mussels so I switched to my lime chicken, and diverted them with my jungle guacamole. For the guacamole, I cleaned three small Hass avocados--perfectly ripe--and mashed them. Then I sauteed garlic in olive oil, added finely diced red onion and finally finely diced Roma tomatoes. When that was done I added it, hot, to the avocados, put in a bit of salt and a bunch of butcher-ground black pepper, let it marry for 10 minutes, then added juice of two limes.
They liked it.
And while they were eating that I took 3 half chicken breasts and cut them each in half, lengthwise, to make six nice pieces of chicken breast. They were flowered, egged and then dipped in a mix of 1/2 plain--good--breadcrumbs and 1/2 grated parmesan cheese. With some good pepper thrown in for good measure.
Those got sauteed in good olive oil on one side till brown, then removed from the pan and placed in pyrex pans, dusted with freshly shaved parmesan and then embellished with the juice of several limes--and then put into the oven at 350 for about 10-12 minutes.
While they were cooking, the basmati rice, cooked with garlic and olive oil was finishing.
And while they were cooking I took about 1/2 pound of asparagus, par-boiled them, then drained. Then I cut some salt pork jowel bacon--just a little and cut finely--and reduced that in a saute pan. Done, I added a bit of garlic and olive oil and then the asparagus. As the asparagus was finishing, I added a bit of white vinegar.
While that was all cooking I moistened fresh spinach, drained it, then cooked it in the same damned olive oil and garlic with a little balsamic vinegar and a teaspoon of butter. With the same darned cracked black pepper.
Then I sauteed up some very fine red pepper slices--long wise--and used that to dress the plates.
Food was great. As always at the Gorman's, no matter who is cooking.
Taste bud sensation.
Bo's friend loved it. Bo loved it. i loved it.
What was startling was making it while someone who loves cooking watch. Normally my kids chip in on cutting garlic and things but they basically eat. And love it. But yesterday I had an audience of one who loves cooking and watching him watch me doing some of the most basic things I do let me see me through his eyes and WOW! I'm freaking fantastic in a kitchen. I do like 20 things at once, have three or four pots and pans on at the same time all coming together at the right moment, including garnishes--which yesterday included cantaloupe along with the red pepper and some cilantro. But to me it's just cooking. To see it from someone else's eyes--someone who likes cooking and who kept saying: What was that? I missed that step. How did you do that?
In all my life I don't remember having had an audience like that. I mean this guy--a smart guy--was interested in what I was doing and how I was doing it and he found it magical. My kids love my food. In all my years at the restaurant thousands of people came into my kitchen to watch me for my magic, but last night there was actually someone who understood the magic and loved it.
I don't mean to be sappy but what a rush that was! I mean, I made jungle guac and I had someone not just saying it was good or great or fantastic but saying, "So when did you add the onions to the garlic? How long before the tomatoes? This is unbelieveable! Go over it again."
And if you're a mom or dad or big sister or brother or aunt or uncle who has made thousands of meals, all with the intent of keeping those in your charge healthy, well, you know that's not a place where ego gets gratified. So to have someone gratify my ego--about my tastes, my movements in the kitchen, my cutting, my seasoning, my cleanup--well, that was one very nice event.
And for all you moms and dads cooking every day, I can only wish that someday this guy, this friend of Bo Keely's, comes to your house and makes you feel like the greatest cook/chef in the world.

Just Some Sad Stories

Well, it's a beautiful morning here in bucolic Joshua. I'm sitting at my desk ready to start making phone calls. I've got several stories lined up that need to be moved along. Problem is, they're all pretty sad stories. A couple I know who moved into a dream house a few years ago faced almost immediate disappointment when they discovered that a gas well pad was being put along their fence line. There went the view. Worse, whenever it rained all the poisons that accumulated on the padsite went into their yard, killing their garden and flower bed.
Since then they've discovered their house is in a flood plane--it was said not to be--and the rains over the years have made it worthless. Sad story of being raked over the coals.
Then there's the story of a truck cleaner who is now crippled and whose partner is dead. He thought he was washing trucks. He didn't know they carried biohazards. Decent guy screwed by an unscrupulous boss. Damn.
Then there's a story for my column in Skunk magazine about someone in Hawaii going to jail for 11 years over some pot she was growing. Damn.
All those things and others are trying to take the sheen away from this glorious day. I'm gonna try not to let them.
There was one good laugh so far: Taking Madeleina to school this morning she referred to a guy we know who just got married and who already has a child as "pretty good guy. But the girl, dad, please....she's just a chick he picked up and knocked up..."
She tried to catch herself but it was too late. I'd heard it.
This was my baby talking! My baby!
Well, I guess she's still my baby but she's not really a baby anymore, eh?
Have a great one, everyone.

Shameless Self-Freaking Promotion: So Buy Into It!

Okay everybody: Gloves are off. I need to sell 1,000 copies of my book by the end of the month, 12 days, in order to make enough money to pay the damned mortgage for the next couple of months. So go to Amazon.com, look up Ayahuasca in My Blood 25 Years of Medicine Dreaming and then buy a couple of dozen. Very inexpensive pre-Christmas, Christmas presents for the whole clan. Twelve year old nephew? No sweat. He'll grow into it. He's gonna do drugs one day anyway, so you might as well introduce him to the proper way to meet good medicine, rather than let his 14 year old friends do it. SO BUY THE BOOK!!!!!
Second: I've got two trips coming up in January and February. I think my website is finally up to speed on dates. There is a 21 day trip that includes the jungle and the highlands (cuzco-sacred valley-Machu Picchu). It's expensive at $4400, which comes to $210 a day. Does not include any airfare, but does include most meals, all hotels, trains, entrances, everything but walking around money and any liquor you drink in the cities. There is no liquor while in medicine mode. The medicines will include ayahuasca, magic 'shrooms, sapo, nu-nu and San Pedro. You'll have the best people I know administering it. And you can do either end or the whole trip. Jungle portion, 12 1/2 days is 2400. Mountain portion, 8 1/2 days is $2000. There are no secret extras: some meals and your walking around money are on you, plus your airfare, but the rest is included and it's well done all the way around.
Dates for the January 2012 trip are: Jan 7-Jan 28.

In February I've got a 9 1/2 day Jungle Intensive. It's very good, very intense, and focuses on living in the jungle/ayahuasca/sapo and nu-nu, with some shrooms probably showing up. That trip runs from Feb 4-Feb 13. Cost is $1800 and everything but airfare, walking around money and any alcohol you have during our day and a half in Iquitos is included.
Both of these trips are extraordinary, as former guests will attest. My team is fantastic, the places we go include some places that people who have lived in Iquitos, Peru for years have never gone. My aim is to allow you to change in the most positive way. If you suck, you'll suck less when we're finished with you. If you are already great, we'll just polish you up to a high gleam.
I love doing these trips. And I think the guests do as well. But I need guests to do them. So sign up, change your life, and that's it.
Thanks for listening to this selfish notice. I'll try not to repeat too often.

Marco's Birthday Story

it was my son Marco's birthday yesterday, so I made a lot of grilled chicken and his favorite dish, Cuban beef--chopped beef in Spanish-seasoned tomato sauce--over rice and got a cake and brought it over to my ex-wife Chepa's where the party was. She had a lot of the extended family there and a good volleyball game that kept up for hours--with people just coming and going as they liked. I played a while, thenI left after cake at 9:30; I was told today the party kept on going till after Madeleina came back from dancing at a friend's quinceañera at about 1 AM. I just can't do those sorts of nights. I'm way too tired. But he had a good time and party--with the one black hole the fact that a girl he adores who was supposed to come by, didn't.
This morning he was fairly in the dumps about it so I told him the story of a beautiful girl who used to hang out with the High Times guys. She was gorgeous and would take a different one of them home to sleep with them once in a while. I was not in that circle so it was never me and that was fine. But one of our guys was really in love with her and I asked him how he held up, knowing she was only going to show up to sleep with him maybe every three weeks or month and that she'd never be his girlfriend.
He told me that at first it killed him. And then he realized she was like Grace from god. You got it and loved getting it when you did, but couldn't ever expect to get it and never dared hope for it. You just basked in it when it unexpectedly arrived. And that's how that guy handled it.
I hope Marco could see something in that story.
I'm off to cook some fish for Madeleina and I and while I'm at it some chicken for Boots. Then I'll water the lawn. Nice evening.
Have a nice evening yourselves, okay?

My Baby...

My baby, don't need no lovin', my baby;
My baby, don't need no kissin', my baby'
My babe, she don't need no lovin'
All she needs is a good time husband, my baby....
And all Madeleina needed today was dad to bring a pot luck dinner to a pot luck dinner for the Joshua HS marching band.
Well, I bought 10 pounds of boneless pork country ribs yesterday and today I seared them, peppered and put a bit of olive oil and garlic on them, then baked them.
And while they were baking I made--cheated--a barbeque sauce. First, I took the pan drippings from the searing. To that I added fresh salt pork bacon bits I cut from a small piece I had. Then garlic in olive oil, a big diced red onion, four good organic roma tomatoes, two celery stalks sliced finely, four good scallions, cleaned and diced, and then, when that was all sort of married, some decent barbeque sauce.
So it wasn't my sauce but it had my intentions and material in it.
And it was fantastic.
And Madeleina called while I was cooking the sauce:
"Dad, did you forget the dinner? Please don't tell me you're drunk and forgot the dinner!!!!"
"I'm not drunk and didn't forget the dinner. I'll be there in 15 minutes."
"But I TOLD YOU to be here between 6:30 and 7 pm!!!!!" she screamed.
"Yes, baby, it's only 6:35. I'll be there before 7."
"Don't embarrass me, dad!"
"I won't."
Ten minutes later I was there and when I opened my dish and people smelled it they ooh'd and aah'd and Madeleina saw that and gave me the thumbs up and smiled broadly and when the person behind the counter took a bite of the soft as cotton ribs and announced: "We have the dish of the night here! Try these ribs!", well Madeleina started to glow.
And then she told me to go home and pick her up later.
So I did.
And she was proud. And that's all that mattered to me.
You need every edge in high school that you can get. I'm glad to help if the kitchen is involved.

Sunday Didn't End Well

Well, Sunday started off with me being so alive, and so happy to be alive. And then I started thinking about 9/11, 10 years ago, and I was sad. And then I was doing a song for some people and my brother-in-law, Tom, said thanks but he didn't need it anymore. I'd been singing for his liver to get better and for him to have a bigger straw to breathe through.
And then I got a call from New York and Madeleina said she'd get it and I said "no" because I knew it was my sister telling me Tom had died. It wasn't. It was from my friend Bill, about writing.
But my brother Mike called me at 5 PM to say Regina asked him to tell all the brothers and sisters that Tom had died.
So Sunday didn't end well.
Tom was very cool. He was a good guy. He was a lieutenant in the Navy during Vietnam, went to law school but didn't take the bar because he didn't think it was an honest living. So he worked as a bouncer. i knew of him working in New York City restaurants long before I met him. He was the one guy the mob was afraid of. In New York, all bars pay for protection to the mob. It's a good system and no bar in New York has ever been robbed of receipts, even if they have $50.000 cash, in memory. The mob will eliminate anyone who robs a bar in all five boroughs. It's one of the reasons the mob is loved in NYC: They take care of business.
But the Irish bars don't like paying the tithe. So they used to hire my brother in law, Tom, to protect them. I've no doubt he charged more than the mob did but it was the principle. So the mob would come to an Irish bar and announce that they would be getting a cigarette machine, a juke-box and paying $200-$400 a week for protection on top of those. Then the bar owner would get in touch with Tom. Tom had several brothers in the police department, all big and strong, and, as the story went--though I don't know if it's true or not--when the mob guys came back for first payment, Tom would drag them to the building roof and toss one of them off to his death with the message not to come back.
It might have been just a story, but that's the guy my little sister met and fell in love with.
The toughest guy in New York.
And he probably was.
He was 6'1". but when he was a bouncer for tough clubs he liked to slouch. He wore glasses and a stingy brim hat and would come to a table of rowdy people and say something like: "Listen, fellas, you're getting out of hand. How bout we walk around the block for 10 minutes, catch some air, and when you come back I'll buy you a drink?"
Smooth.
When my sister met him he was under indictment for having bit the cheek off a guy who'd just become a doctor who tried to hit him with a 2/X 4 embedded with nails he'd found while taking that walk around the block. Tommy won the case.
So I had to let my sister marry this crazy guy, who turned out to be one of the best good guys. Though not a cop the cops often relied on him: Twice he called me to say he'd been hired by the NYPD to tail a known violent felon they didn't have the manpower to follow. My job, for $200 a day? Sit in back of the building where the felon was thought to be hiding, while Tom sat out front, and get the guy if he tried to run. I was so scared but knowing Tommy was out front gave me courage. And we're talking bad bad guys. He was that kind of tough.
And you know what? He loved my sister. My baby sister, Regina. He thought about her every moment: Where you going, Reg? When you coming home? Should I wait up? What do you want to eat? Should I make food?
And he loved their kid, Tommy, my nephew, who played baseball and basketball with my kids Italo and Marco.
So he had some faults like the rest of us-- anybody who ever looks at me will find alcohol and cigarettes, so I am not going to throw stones. And our faults finally take a toll. And so a couple of years ago Tom got sick. And I was sick thinking of him being sick. I mean this guy was so freaking strong he made heavy bags beg for mercy. Just like his kid.
So I hated seeing him weak the last couple of years. And I didn't see him, really. I only went to New York once since I moved to Texas and so saw him last November for 6-7 days, when he was really sick. But he was still full of vim and vinegar. He would still scare people.
But he pushed my sister to buy a house on long Island and was happy when she did. He knew that was important. And he put a few bucks away that she probably didn't know about just so she'd be taken care of.
And when I saw him he was still full of juice, though sick.
And I am going to miss him and his hats and his humor and his strength and the way he took care of my little sister and I'm sad for her, and their son, not him. If there is an afterlife I know he's already found a heavy bag and told St. Pete: Give me the gym. Now that I can breathe again all I want to do is hit the heavy bag.
And he's probably doing it.
I'm just hoping my sister makes it through.
Yo, Tom! You did right by my sister for 30 years. That's what I asked you to do when you married her. So Thanks. Now, she's a little lost. So take care of her for a while more, okay?
And then toss someone else off a roof if you need to.
Those of us who lived in NYC understand.
I miss you already.
Just saying.
Peter G--your bro in many ways