Left Over Heaven

So I had people come in last week. Several of them. Some came for a visit, some came for medicine and a visit, some just needed to know they were not alone in the universe. Then Madeleina showed up unexpectedly on Friday and hung out till Monday morning when I drove her back to school.
   Most of the people gave scant warning and I didn't know if they were coming for an hour or overnight--except for one old friend who came for a couple of nights with plenty of warning. So I did what I do: I erred on the side of precaution with food and made enough each night to cover several people. Which left me a lot of left overs. I didn't realize how many left overs I had until my oldest son, Italo, said he wanted me to cook him something great for breakfast. So I looked in the fridge. Low and behold: I had a large bowl of pasta--thin spaghetti--with a shrimp and clam white sauce. I had a nice bowl of well-seasoned taco beef I made for Chepa and the kids one night. I had lime chicken, about three pieces. Lime chicken is one of my old dishes: Take a half of a chicken breast, slice it in two and then open each one of those halves-of-halves up so that they are thin pieces of breast. Bread them in a mix of breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese, saute till golden brown on one side, transfer to an oven dish, put more parmesan on the chicken and squeeze the juice of a whole lime on each, then bake till glistening at 325--about 8-10 minutes. Man, that is good stuff.
   Then there were the ribs I made that no one ate. I pulled the meat from the baby back ribs and put it in a bowl. Heated up garlic and olive oil in a saute pan, tossed in a diced onion, threw in three diced Roma tomatoes, put the pulled pork into that, added a good quality spicy barbeque sauce (I was too lazy to make my own that day) and wound up with wonderful pulled pork left over. Then there was the sausage and peppers and onions I made the night before Italo wanted breakfast. Good hot Italian sausages, first stabbed then boiled (the stabbing allows the fat to escape into the water); then baked till brown, then sliced into pieces and cooked with garlic, olive oil, onions (sliced, not diced), and red and green sliced peppers. Lots of good cracked black pepper. Just like you get in Little Italy in the old days in New York City.
   So Italo had a freaking feast for breakfast. He skipped the pasta, which I eventually served the dogs, but had some of each of the rest. He went back for seconds. And while he was eating he asked why we couldn't go to a restaurant that would serve food this good that was left over. Or this good when it was first made. I told him we could if we opened another restaurant. But until then, if he wants my style cooking, well, he's got to come to my house to eat.

This Pope is Dope!

Pope Francis has had people reeling since he arrived on U.S. soil. He’s pushed love, forgiveness, decency, and climate change awareness,. He’s discussed corporate greed and economic inequality, calling out those who ignore the poorest among us. He’s reprimanded bishops who have swept pedophilia among their priests under the rug. He’s got some people saying he’s talking like a leftie, and others accusing him of being a socialist. Good for him. He’s just talking common sense stuff.

No, he hasn’t been perfect. He has not called for women to be allowed to become priests. No, he has not said that over-population is a serious problem and it’s time that Catholics worldwide embrace birth control. And no, he’s not come out pro-choice.

But he’s been on the money most of the time, and has shown great courage in not just being a religious leader, but a political leader as well.

On Sunday, he went one better, when he visited a prison in Philadelphia and immediately decried our prison system and any other prison system like ours. After embracing a prisoner, Francis called it, “painful when we see prison systems which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities. It is painful when we see people who think that only others need to be cleansed, purified, and do not recognize that their weariness, pain and wounds are also the weariness, pain and wounds of society.”

That sentiment echoed what he told the U.S. Congress on Thursday, when he said: “just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.”

That’s the sort of courage every politician ought to have, but few do, and the sort of courage that great statesmen always have. Good for you, Pope Francis.

Story About Moi! in Roads and Kingdoms

I thought I'd posted this but apparently I have not. This is a story about me, of all the damned things, that a writer named Jared Johnson wrote for RoadsandKingdoms.com, a fantastic on line magazine of travel stories. Not your normal travel stories, these are interesting enough that now that I know it exists, I shoot over to roadsandkingdoms.com once a week to see what new material they've put up. Do it, you won't be disappointed.
    But just for the ego/ego-smashing of it all, here's a link to Jared Johnson's Under the Texas Sun.

http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/under-the-texan-sun/

My Kid, Italo, is the Greatest!

Not to besmirch my other kids, cause they're all the greatest, but right now I'm thinking about my oldest son, Italo, and thinking that he's the greatest. The other kids are the greatest too, but this second it's Italo's turn. Why? Because he can fix anything I break. I break every freaking thing that has electricity associated with it. $900 ovens burn out in 6 months with me. $300 Microwaves burst into flames after 3 months with me. I spent 20 minutes trying to start my damned electrical push mower yesterday and it wouldn't turn over and he shows up today and it roared into action on the first pull of the toggle! Then he borrowed my Home Depot card to buy something for his mother, the beautiful Chepa, my wife/ex-wife who always seems to need to borrow my cards to get things or pay bills, and he also bought a new battery for my riding lawn mower.
    So I called him to invite him to take home some baby back ribs for dinner. He was on the way to the dentist with my granddaughter, Taylor Rain, so I told him just to stop by on the way back and pick up the ribs because they'll be ready. And he laughed and asked me what jobs needed doing at my house. And I said I wasn't going to start crying just because I loved him, and then I told him to pick up the damned ribs and a couple of baked potatoes and that was that. And he laughed again and said, "thanks, pops, see you in a while," and then I wrote this and right now I think he's the greatest ally a person could have. Just saying. And I feel the same about Marco and Madeleina and Chepa and Sierra and Alexa and Taylor Rain. But right now, it's Italo's turn. I love you, buddy. Thanks for being my kid. How lucky I got!

Raking Leaves, Eating Shrimp

So yesterday I was pulling into the Two Bucks liquor store parking lot to get two mini-bottles (airplane bottles) of James Beam and just before I entered I had the sickening revelation that before I left the parking lot--about two minutes total, including the store time--I was going to have a flat tire. And dammit, as I started to drive off, I felt the rear left thumping along. I turned around and went back into the lot and sure enough, there was the flat I knew was coming.
   The people at the store know me so it was no problem to use the phone to call Chepa to have her text Italo to come and save me. I wouldn't have needed to phone if the spare was in the car along with a jack, but there was neither. And since I just bought this car from Italo and he's so meticulous about those sorts of things, it never occurred to me to double check. [Note to self: Even though your son Italo is fantastic, check things like spare tires when you buy another car from him cause he ain't perfect.]
   Anyway, the work I was going to get done didn't get done with the loss of a couple of hours, as I wound up getting home at 7ish rather than 5ish. Which meant it was dinner time. What to make?
   I looked through the stores. Two hours twiddling my thumbs--and I was really, really glad when Italo showed up, brought me to a meeting place where his wife, Sarah, was waiting to take me home--and I was in the mood for red meat. I had none.
   So I took out some fresh (formerly frozen) shrimp, maybe 16-25s (16-to-25 to a pound), from the fridge, pulled out 11 of them, cleaned them, cut them open. In a nice sauté pan I put olive oil with garlic. When that was hot I put in the shrimp and salted and peppered them with good pink sea salt and cracked black pepper. While they sizzled, I cut and trimmed five scallions and diced one Roma tomato. When I pulled the shrimp I put the scallions and tomato into the sizzling hot pan, added a touch of a good light soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of butter (that was to replace my meat fix for available fat). Veggies cooked I pulled them, then put a huge handful of organic spinach in the pot with a bit of white vinegar to pull out any pan bits, sauteed that till just done, put that on a plate, covered it with the shrimp, then tossed on the veggies. No starch as it was too late in the evening.
   Man, that meal took all of 10 minutes but was really good. Every bite a epicurian delight. Try it. I'm not lying.
   Then today, after we got the wheel with the flat from the car at Two Bucks, brought it back to Joshua and had a new tire put on and then brought that back to Fort Worth and got the car in running shape, I stopped at the store. I was still dying for that red meat I wanted yesterday. So I bought a good full-inch-thick rib eye for tonight. But I also bought some chicken drumsticks just in case--and hoping--that Chepa and the girls would come for dinner. They did. So I quickly put on good Jasmine rice, put the dogs' food--chicken backs and necks today--in the oven, put on a large sauté pan--a rock solid pan I've used almost daily for more than 20 years as it was a wedding present back in 1994--put in vegetable oil and got that good and hot--about 8 1/2 on my hottest burner with 10 being the hottest. While that was warming up, I washed the drumsticks then dredged them in organic flour, then sauteed them till a lovely brown. When I got all 12 drumsticks done--made the whole flat because Chepa might want to bring a couple home for Marco and Sarah might want to bring a couple home to Italo--I put them in a good glass Corningware pan and put that into the oven at 350. They should be done in 20 minutes. All the flavor of fried chicken without the grease. Rice should be done at the same time. Kids can eat early. I've lost my appetite from the cooking so I can skip a meal tonight--or just have a good salad--and I can stand to lose a meal now and then.
    So life's perfect, right? I mean, one night it's shrimp, one night chicken drumsticks, one night skip food. I try to remember to thank the universe every day that in this incarnation I came here poor but middle-class poor, not poor, poor, and I came here smart and I came with a good set of parents and a great brother and four great sisters, the whole shebang. Not everybody gets that by a long shot. I know I won the Earth Being Lottery and I'm very thankful. A couple of billion of us did not win that lottery. I hope they find enough to eat. I hope I put in my fair share to help make that a reality. Because my kids eat and a lot of parents cannot say that, and it's not their fault. They just did not have the same beginnings I had. Dammit, this was a story about a busted tire and food, and now it's taken the right hand fork in the road into something else. But that's okay. Everytime we eat, and eat what we choose to eat, not what we can find, we ought to remember that someone else doesn't have that choice and that's not generally because that's their choice. That's what they were dealt. Thanks Universe. And I will try to keep remembering to share what I've got.
 

Braised Short Ribs

On the continuing quest for interesting things to eat while I eat alone because Madeleina's away at college--Tarleton State U--and having a blast, tonight I just put short ribs in the oven. Normally I just sear them and put them in with some sea salt and cracked black pepper with garlic and olive oil, but tonight I'm going differently because I have some lawn to cut and won't be in the house for an hour or so.
     So first thing after I bought the short ribs was to pick up a decent ($30) dutch oven. Not the best, but a pretty good one. Funny that I could not find mine. I'll bet I could if I looked in Chepa's cabinets, but I've given up on that sort of thing. It doesn't make anyone happy. Hell, last week I raided her garage, took two shovels, a good branch parer, a sledge hammer, my sythe and several other tools she's borrowed, or my sons have borrowed on her behalf, in the not too distant past and the next thing you know I'm being asked why I'm stealing all her stuff? I said, what stuff? It's all mine. She said, I'm still your wife. Everything you own is mine, so it's my stuff and you're stealing it, trying to make me look like a poor lady.
   So I'm not looking for missing pots, bowls, cups, silverware. Because she's right, in a crazy way: She owns me till I'm dead, and I work more than her, and if she needs stuff she takes it and if I need that stuff again I should go buy it.
   So I did.
   Home, I heated up my fantastic large saute pan, put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into it, floured the short ribs, then browned them on all sides with good salt and pepper. Then I took out the ribs, added a diced onion, five sliced scallions, lots of garlic in not-so-much olive oil, and when that was all done, tossed in two over-ripe diced tomatoes.
   When that was all scalding and smelling like dinner, I poured in two glasses of decent cabernet sauvignon and scraped all the pan material, then added two cups of organic vegetable broth and let that boil and let the flavors marry for a few minutes.
   Then I put a touch of olive oil in the new dutch oven, put in the meat, and covered it all with the wine and veggies. Then I tossed in some organic baby carrots, two diced organic celery stalks, a couple of rosemary stems I had in my freezer, added a bit more pepper, covered that baby, and put her in the oven at 315 degrees. I won't even look at her for two hours--now one hour and 30 minutes. And when I do, I'll be looking at a few bites of the ripest meat in the world. I know it's horrible to eat meat, but short ribs, done right, are something else. And I swear I'll let the cows eat me when I'm dying. Or kill me and eat me. Promise.
   So I'm gonna have that with a nice salad, as usual, and broccoli and cauliflower florets, par-boiled then seared in olive oil with garlic--the olive oil drained before serving. No rice, no potato, no bread, no starch. Meal's rich enough without that. (Besides, I had that last night when I made myself a nice hot Virginia ham and baby Swiss cheese sandwich on super fresh French bread.)
   I hope all of you have a few minutes to plan and execute a fantastic meal for yourselves tonight and every night. Try to make the time. It beats fast food and doesn't cost much more. And if anybody's hungry, come on over, I'm sure there is enough to share.
 

Yes, I'm a taco virgin...

Ridiculous as this might be, considering I was a chef for a long time in Manhattan, then had my own restaurant in Peru, and have fed my family daily--with help from my wife/ex-wife Chepa--since 1994, I don't think I've ever made or eaten a taco. So somehow I woke up with the idea of making tacos today. I'm not gonna look up recipes, I'm just gonna do it based on what I've seen in ads and how Mexican meat is frequently seasoned.
I bought some crunchy shells, number one.
I just par seared about 1 1/2 pounds of good quality chuck meat. It's draining. I'm about to dice a fat red onion and maybe five organic scallions, a nice red Bell pepper, and three or four good organic Roma tomatoes, also diced. I'm gonna put a couple of good tablespoons of my fresh garlic in olive oil in the pan in which the meat was seared, then add the onion and scallions and pepper till everything is see-through. Then I'll toss in the tomatoes. Then I'll toss in the meat. When it gets hot I'm planning on putting in some pink sea salt, cracked black pepper, a little chile powder, some good cumin, a couple of ounces of white vinegar, a spoon of red pepper flakes, and, if need be, a couple of spoons of Peruvian tomato paste.
When it simmers and the flavors marry, I'll check it. When it's good, I'll probably put in a couple of slices of really good, sharp cheddar, and when that's disappeared into the pan, I'll top with a head of minced fresh cilantro.
I'll put that into the Taco shells I bought, top with shredded romaine and raddicchio, a slice of avocado, minced cheddar cheese and a smash of some Taco sauce I bought.
I hope that's something like a taco. I could probably check the internet but I don't want to be disappointed and have to change my plan if I'm wrong.
Sixty-four and having my first--I think--taco. I hope it won't kill me.

PS: Turned out pretty good. 

The Vampires at Kim Davis' Neck

Born again Kim Davis is probably in over her head, and certainly in it up to her neck. The Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for several days for contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses to anyone since the U.S. Supreme Court declared that same-sex marriages were legal throughout the country, has become a star/darling of the radical Christian Right. At her release-from-jail fest (it was originally a protest until U.S. District Judge David Bunning surprised the crowd gathered in front of the local jail and released her) both Mike Huckabee and Texas’ own, Ted Cruz were there to greet her. Huckabee pulled a fast one and blocked Cruz from air time, which was classic but is off point here.

   What’s on point is that Davis probably does not realize that the vampires are already at her neck and by the time they’re through with her, there might not be much left. An email was sent out by the American Family Association yesterday in support of not only Davis but a call to arms for “states to make accommodations for all Christians like Kim Davis.” The AFA didn’t specifically ask for money, but did point toward where a person might be able to reach the non-profit. The fundamentalist group was labeled a hate-group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010 for demonizing false propaganda against LGBT people.

   Davis’ legal team belong to another group labeled a hate-group by the SPLC. The Liberty Counsel, which claims its work is devoted to First Amendment rights focused on religious liberty, like Huckabee, Cruz, and the AFA are all hoping that Davis’ situation brings in the big bucks. And it probably will. But to keep Davis in the spotlight long enough for that to happen, Davis will probably need to get jailed again–which will probably happen if she defies the court’s order not to interfere with any of her Rowan County assistant clerks handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis might feel like a vindicated star, but she will be played like a fiddle by the professional leeches surrounding her if she doesn’t watch her step. She’s in the water with sharks and someone needs to tell her that she’s the meal. And then someone ought to school her on what the separation of church and state means when it comes to doing her job.

What the heck am I to eat??????

With Madeleina away at university all week--and for three weeks at the moment--I'm sort of alone except on nights when Chepa asks for a fast barbeque or Italo and Sarah say they're coming over, or when friends come over on the weekend. And when I'm alone, I don't like to cook a lot. I almost resent having to cook the dogs their chicken legs and backs, much less want to bother with anything for me. So yesterday I bought two sushi rolls and that was dinner, along with a seaweed salad. Tonight I'm making duck breast. I'll score the fat, sear it in a touch of olive oil, add minced garlic and olive oil to the pink sea-salted/crack black-peppered breasts and put them in a low oven, maybe 320 degrees for 8 minutes or so. Then I'll pull them, turn the oven to 400 and when it's ready, put those babies back in for three minutes to crisp the skin. Then I'll pull them again and set them aside.
    While they're cooking, I'll toss diced red onion, sliced mushrooms, minced organic scallions into the pan juices. When the onions begin to clear, I'm tossing in a small handful of organic raspberries and I'll stir things up so that they sort of melt into the mix. I'll finish it off with a good shot of nice balsamic vinegar. Then I'll put that sauce aside and put a huge handful of spinach into the remains of the pan sauce and reduce that. Put that on a plate as a bed, slice the duck breasts--two of them don't weigh 11 ounces before cooking--and pour the raspberry glaze on them and the spinach.
   I'll have that with a nice salad of radicchio and romaine with a touch of bleu cheese, organic cherub tomatoes and my shallot vinagrette (thank you again, Christie!).
   And that is it. Gonna take 15 minutes top to bottom, maybe 20 by the time I'm actually served and the saute' pan has been washed (always wash as I go). And it is gonna be good.
   Then tomorrow I'll worry about that 10 ounces of swordfish I picked up today...
   So what the heck am I gonna eat if I'm alone? The very best quick stuff I can think of.

Oh, and now that my book Ayahuasca in My Blood has been published in Italy, a second Italian publisher, the name of which I forget this minute but I looked them up and they're legit--asked for the Italian rights to Sapo in My Soul. Cool, I think, right? Pretty cool.

Last Minute Barbeque

So the heat finally broke here in Joshua, Texas, dropping down from over 100 daily to about 85 today with some rain and continually overcast skies. Chepa surprised me this morning with a call to say that one of her mother's sister's boys was in town and I should make a barbeque. But I have someone coming who needs some frog sweat medicine, so that meant, after I wrote a short piece for the Fort Worth Weekly, that I had to race to the store. I got 1 1/2 pounds of shrimp, eight chicken thighs, and a rack of baby back ribs.
   Race home. Person coming is a little late. Put the dogs' chicken legs in the oven, wash dishes, clean kitchen, vaccuum, cut thighs and put them in the oven to partially cook them so that the barbeque will be just 15 minutes and they will still be juicy.
   Cut two heads of garlic and a large onion. Put in bowl. Add oil, vinegar, other secret liquids and spices and have marinade for everything ready.
   Skin the shrimp, put in bowl.
   Cook potatoes and eggs for potato and egg salad.
   Cut broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini and yellow squash for later use. Put in pot of cool water. Don't cook till later.
   When the time is right, I'll take out the chicken thighs and put in marinade. Wash glass Corning Ware pan and put a little olive oil and garlic and pepper on the ribs, then put them in the oven, slow cook.
   When the chicken goes out to the grill later--which will be manned by Chepa--I'll toss the shrimp and by then cooked veggies into the marinade. When chicken is near done, I'll finish potato and egg salad, skewer shrimp and remove them and veggies from marinade for Chepa to grill, then I'll turn up heat on ribs to brown after I drizzle some tangy barbeque sauce on them.
   Somewhere in there I'll make good basmati rice.
It's touch and go, especially since I'll have someone puking from the frog sweat medicine during the main events, but should wind up just about perfect.
   I love a challenge. Gets my blood going.
   And if you're in the neighborhood, come on over. I'm sure there will be enough for everybody.

Dinner for One, Please

So my beautiful Madeleina went off to college on the 12th of August, or the 13th. She didn't go far, just too far to commute at about 60 miles. So I was going to be alone. But my friend Hector came into town and stayed till Monday afternoon, maybe 17 days. During that time he completely redid my web page/pages. So it's all good. And while he was here, some other people came as well, so I was never alone at dinner and actually had to make good meals daily, plus a few breakfasts. And when Madeleina came home for a night or two on the weekend, well, I cooked normally, which means I cooked for maybe 6-8 people a night, knowing that Chepa and the babies might show up, or Italo and Sarah and Taylor Rain, or friends or whatnot. And if nobody ate the food, they might stop by the next day and have some for lunch. Last resort? It went into the dogs' bowls.
     But Hector left Monday, and so I've had three nights of being alone. The first night I cheated: I bought some sushi--just a couple of rolls--and a great seaweed salad and that was dinner. Last night I treated myself to a ribeye, sauteed screaming hot so that it would be a sort of black and red, topped with a bit of good quality crumbled bleu cheese and served with a nice romaine salad--with organic cherub tomatoes and a good balsamic vinagrette (thank you again, Christie E), and spinach with garlic. No need for starch with all that meat.
    Today I wasn't sure, but finally settled on the hidden guinea--New York Italian, all respect--part of me, even though I'm Irish. I bought 12 ounces of the hottest sausages I could find. They're in a pot of water now, stabbed with a sharp knive several times to allow the excess fat to be eliminated. Then I got one large organic red bell pepper and two organic greens. They are cleaned and cut lengthwise. I have a beautiful sweet purple onion, chopped garlic in olive oil and three nice Roma tomatoes.
    When the fat is rendered from the sausage, I'll drain them, then cut them into circles, put them in a very hot saute pan with olive oil and garlic and brown them. Then I'll add the onions, peppers, and finally the tomatoes, cut into thin wedges, lengthwise. Stir, add some pepper, and voila: You got Mike the Hat's recipe for Sausage and Peppers. Now Mike would have put all that on Italian bread, but considering I'm feeling fat, I'll put mine on a bed of sauteed spinach and eat it with a nice salad. I'll have a glas of wine: I'm drinking a Cabernet blend called Rare Red Grape 4 Blend, from California which is out of this world for $8 bucks.
   Then I'll turn on a movie. One I like because no one is arguing with me or having better suggestions. Last night I watched Fletch, with Chevy Chase as the off-beat detective Fletcher. Tonight? Who knows. Maybe an Ingmar Bergman.
   But that's living alone: You have to decide on your food, make your food, serve yourself, clean up and nobody says thanks. I mean, I say thanks to the universe that I can afford to eat. Thanks that I have choices and breath and a few teeth to chew with, but nobody is saying "Gorman, this was freaking incredible" unless me looking into a mirror counts.
   I hope you all eat well tonight. Prepare your food with focus, cook it well, enjoy it, let it make you strong.

Christians and that Damned Non-Christian Old Testament

Okay, so I'm not gonna go completely nuts here, but on Facebook the other day, some blooming nut was talking about homosexuality and claiming that "the Lord" whom he followed as a Christian, had spoken about it, condemning it. Backing up his argument he quoted from Leviticus in the Old Testament. Sort of sent the hair on the back of my head curling and I had to respond. This was my very simple point:
I'm always surprised when people who call themselves Christians drag out the Old Testament, which is not in any way Christian. It ends when Christ was born--assuming that happened and so forth. And Christ, as we are told through the various gospels--stories--written about him over the years, never said anything about homosexuality. He did discuss and condemn greed and hatred, among other things, preached forgiveness, acceptance, and love, among other things, but never discussed homosexuality or said anything about abortion or prostitution or any of the other things that so many people who call themselves Christians appear to condemn. For those perspectives they have to cherry-pick that old testament, which, again, has nothing to do with Christianity or Christ. Just pointing out the obvious, I know.

Ceiling down!!!

So I went out for a little while today and when I returned, Madeleina met me at the door and said: "Dad, don't freak out, but something bad happened while you were gone..."
    "You okay?" I asked.
    "Yes, dad. It's nothing like that...."
    "Then what is it?"
    "I think you better come see for yourself. But don't flip out, okay? It's bad but not the end of the world."
     With that I knew it was the end of something and decided to have a glass of wine before I went to see whatever it was.
     What it was was this: A huge chunk of the ceiling in the hallway that connects the kitchen to the three bedrooms and the bathroom had fallen. Just got waterlogged from condensation on the pipes connected to the air conditioner. It's happened before at the end of the summer, but never like this. This was hundreds of pounds of waterlogged dry wall that had become soaked wall.
    What could I do? I started singing, "This house is falling apart..." ("Anna Sun" by Walk the Moon), "This house is falling apart, we got no money but we got got heart. We're gonna rattle this ghost town, we rattle this scene, oh Anna Sun..." And then I pulled out some garbage bags, filled 'em, had Madeleina take them to the truck where they'll sit till I go to the dump, and in half an hour it was clean. And if you don't look up, ever, you won't even see that there's a huge chunk of empty where there ought to be a ceiling.
    See how easy it is if you accept things like that as regular occurrances? No need to go nuts. Just clean it up. Oh, and then call your son, Italo, and tell him he ought to come over and fix it.....

What's cooking?

Well, there seem to be lots of plans afoot. Most of them I cannot talk about. In fact I've had to sign a slew of "non-disclosure agreements" lately related to television shows, restaurant ideas, medicines and other stuff. For a minute it feels like you're (I'm) important, but then I know as well as all of you, that it's only very infrequently that someone else's ideas come to fruition. Or my own ideas. But at least I have some control over my own ideas. I fail sometimes for lack of funds, but generally knew that was going to happen going in, so I don't consider it a failure, just a lack of knowhow in terms of materializing the funds necessary to turn my pie-in-the-sky ideas into reality.
    I'll tell you one idea of mine that should have been jumped on years ago: When you were a little kid, and perhaps even today, we had camping cups. Camping cups were aluminum cups that were built by having several 3/4 inch pieces of aluminum on top of each other. Each was a bit bigger than the one below, and a bit smaller than the one above. So they crushed down on each other. The cup, when crushed, was just 3/4 of an inch tall. Snap it open and it was a full eight-ounce cup.
   My idea was to have a similar but much larger cup that you could use as the base for a hot air balloon. Something that folded up small enough to carry in a back pack, very light weight. But when opened up would be the right size for a single person to ascend heights via hot air. Now if that came with a small gas balloon made of super strong, super lightweight mylar, and if that balloon could be filled with a gas that could be held in a 10-15 pound tank: the balloon could be filled, then emptied back into the tank, allowing the tank and balloon to be used multiple times on a single trip, well, with something like that I could soar to several thousand feet and investigate some buttes and mountain tops in the Andes Mountains that are otherwise inaccessible and have never been photographed because of 24/7 cloud cover. The Matses, for instance, claim they came from a butte that is known to be about 40 miles long, 20 miles wide and never been photographed. They claim their fathers left it because there were monsters there that attacked them. Is that true? I have no idea. But I've been hoping to investigate the story for 20 years. And I can't until some damned machinest out there makes me my single person, lightweight, aluminum-cup/mylar gas balloon.
    Okay, so that's one of my ideas that hasn't panned out yet. But when other people have ideas and have me get all hyped up about them, have me invest time and energy in them...well, I'm old enough to know that most of them won't pan out for one reason or another. Might be lack of funds. Might be lack of enthusiasm, or waning enthusiasm. Might be someone in their family negates the idea. Might be a million things.
   So while I'd love to tell you all what's been swirling about, thinks I'm supposed to be included in, well, I can't. I signed those agreements. And once in a while someone's dream does come true. And when that happens, well, it's the most fantastical thing. So I'm rooting for them all, but still getting my stories in on time to make sure I've got a paycheck coming my way.

Project Done

Well, I got back and then didn't stay in touch. Why? Because I've had a guest here for two weeks. Hector, whom I know from Peru but who has also previously visited my home here in Texas, has been redoing my website/websites into one gigantic bundle of magic. He's decided to push my profile a little, using the covers of some magazines I've been printed in, lots of art, a couple of new sections and so forth. I'm a little nervous because it seems a bit grandiose for me, but then those who have seen it are impressed. He's actually done a great job. And there is more to come. But I think most of you will be able to see it at pgorman.com--it seems to be up over most of the known world already, though not here in Joshua, Texas. I've gotten notes from Bali, from several countries in Europe and so forth. So that's what I've been doing. Providing new material, hunting down old magazine covers, writing new text in several places. And there is even an "influences" section at the bottom of the Biography page. That was a great idea of his: I got to salute a lot of the things that occurred at just the right time in my life to have a huge impact on me. And some of them will no doubt resonate with most of you.
    Okay, now I'm behind on a couple of stories for work. I think I can catch up by the end of the weekend. And then I'll be in a position to tell you all a few new and good stories. Thanks for your patience.

Back in Texas, Everything is Upside Down

Well, I'm back again. And boy, what a mess things are. My boys forgot to cut the lawn for six weeks, forgot to train the baby cats not to poop in the living room, and Madeleina went off to college just three days after I returned. That's the big one. She's not far away, but because of band and required courses and the requirement to take a dorm room, it's doubtful she'll be home one day a week for the first semester. Which is probably great for her but stinks for me because I miss her already and it's only been 5 days!!!!
    Enough of complaints. The trip was fantastic! The first group included old friends--four of them--and six newcomers and we all had a rollicking good time in the jungle, with the medicines, with everything. That was followed up by one of the new guests buying the rights to the after-sting medicine I make, Gorman's Jungle Juice. My huge old hotel room was turned into a factory for several days, with five of my team making 200 liters of the medicine for the fellow to bottle and distribute in the US in hopes of getting a national chain interested. As it's the freaking best after-sting medicine around--it works on mosquito and bee and hornet bites, black fly bites, chiggers, horsefly bites, and poison sumac and poison ivy among other things, and I mean it works in seconds to reduce swelling, kill bacteria, eliminate itch and redness and seal the wounds--I think he might get it done. If not, the contract calls for it reverting back to me in 24 months. And if it works, well, I'll be good too.
    And making that medicine in that bulk was a gas. We turned it into a party with lots of fruit, good things to drink and eat in the room, lots of breaks when the heat of the day began to overwhelm us (no air con in my room in Iquitos), and lots of laughs.
    And then, to top it off, a television show asked me to coordinate a trip for them and then put me on camera for hours. And paid me. I can't talk about it but as soon as they put out trailers, I'll post more. Suffice to say it was great.
    Actually, even topping that was having Chepa and Sierra and Alexa there. Chepa went off by herself or with her sisters a lot, so I had the girls nearly every day when I was in Iquitos. And I think it was a vacation they will remember for a long time.
    Okay, not a great post. But did want to let you know I'm back and missed you all as well. Thanks for being there.

Off to Peru

Off to Peru, see you in a month. Leaving four tough dogs to guard the house.
Have a great July, everybody.
PG

Happy about a Change in a Texas Law

Gonna say I'm really happy this second. Immensely happy. I started writing about the truancy laws in Texas a couple of years ago. The laws allowed kids to get Class C misdemeanors which followed them their entire lives. I know, it kept my kid Marco from the armed forces when he wanted to join. But the associated fines were so high that it cost families in which brothers took care of their siblings and were 20 minutes late 10 times a semester to be forced to quit high school rather than rack up more fines ($500 a pop, plus court costs) that they would wind up serving jail time for when they couldn't pay. It was very bad and affected 100,000 kids in Texas annually.
But on Friday, Texas' Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that makes truancy a civil offense from here on out. No more criminalizing kids for being late, or even cutting class. There will be civil repercussions but not criminalization. And my editor, Gayle Reaves, and I, worked hard to help get that word out and I think out work was in the mix of things that tipped the scale here in favor of the new law. Cheers to State Sen. Whitmire and his associates for having the courage to challenge the law and get it fixed. A tip of the hat to everyone--and Texas Appleseed knows how big a part they played--in getting this junk off the books. Cheers to all of us! It's nice to be on the winning side now and then!

Always happens, and always burns

Well, first off, the good news: Madeleina, my baby, is growing up. She just graduated from high school and is headed to Tarleton State University in the Fall. The bad news: She wants a car. And I just got out from under the mortgage. And she does not want the little Lincoln sportster that used to belong to Italo, even though it's a great car. Oh, boy.
    But then there is this: I leave for Peru in four days to take a group out to the deep green for a Jungle Jaunt. It's going to be great. But these things are always tight. Guests don't understand what goes into them, from taking care of emergencies for my team whether I'm in Peru or not, to repairing buildings, buying new small boats and motors so that we have what we need out there. Heck, I had to buy four new sponge mats at $80 each for this trip because a few were getting a bit ratty-looking. Then I've got to rent rooms, hire the team, rent river boat cabins, send gasoline, motor oil, drinking water and a host of other things up river. I've got to put in and pay for orders of magic mushrooms, sapo, nu-nu. I've got to pay for my own hotel room for a month in advance, buy my airline tickets, pay the bills while I'm gone. All of this, plus the money we use on the ground--for taxis, food, boat food, jungle food, staff, a couple of new pots and pans, maybe a few new hammocks to keep things fresh, shotgun shells, re-upping the med kit, just a million things go into a jungle trip. The only monies not already committed are the money I'll spend on fresh food and dry goods.
    So whatever people pay me, I'm lucky to come out of a successful trip with $2000 in my pocket for all the work to get it organized and then a month down there setting up, doing the trip, decompressing from the trip. That's what I was looking at for this trip, provided everything went as planned.
    Nonetheless, at the last second, someone almost always gets cold feet or has a legit life emergency that needs taking care of. I got that call this morning. One of the guests has an emergency. I hope she was lying because I don't wish an emergency on her. But I have to take her at her word.
    AND she needs the money for the trip back. I can keep the deposit plus $100 she said. She meant to be generous. I get it. But what she doesn't understand is that if she paid $1800--I already gave her $100 off the trip price--and I return all but the deposit, I will stand to make a maximum of $700 on this trip. I immediately sent her $500, but I know we're going to have an issue later. I have already spent well over $1000 of her money, and hired an extra staff member to take care of the women on the trip. That staff member has to get paid, whether I need her or not. I can't just say, "oh, I had a cancellation, I don't need you anymore." And now, of course, I have a hotel room that will be used by one when I paid for a double; a boat cabin used by one, when I paid for a double. A new roof on a hut that cost $340 (leaf roof, plus work to put it up) that I no longer need for this trip. And on and on.
     Madeleina said I should not give her anything with the trip starting in less than two weeks. But then I don't like to be hard-nosed and had already sent the woman $500, knowing Madeleina would say something like that. She's right, of course. Nobody should get anything back when it's less than 30 days from the trip starting. I just don't have it in me to be that cold.
    But damnit, I spent several phone calls talking with this woman. I ordered some special jungle medicine for her that was paid up front by me. Ah, nuts.
    I really hope she has no family emergency. But I sure feel burned.

One Bit from My New Drug War Follies Column for Skunk Magazine

So here's one bit from my new Drug War Follies column for Skunk magazine. It's off topic, which is generally, well, drug war idiocy, but then the good folk at Skunk have always allowed me to run off the rails a bit.
Here it is:

In the “Freaking Unbelievable But True” category, this note: In June Texas’ Governor Greg Abbott signed into law two bills that will enhance the good citizens of Texas’ Second Amendment rights. Those rights refer to the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution that calls for a “well regulated Militia” which has the right to bear arms and notes that that right cannot be infringed upon. Over the years that’s come to mean that any flipping nut can walk into a gun shop in Texas and purchase as many guns as they want, up to and including .50 calibre rifles so long as they don’t have outstanding warrants or a criminal history that prohibits them from having a gun. For those people we have what’s called the “Gun Show Loophole”. The gun show loophole allows any private seller to bring his or her guns, including semi-automatics, to a gun show and sell them to anyone without even that cursory phone call to see if they’ve got a criminal history. Just pony up the cash and buy your weapons.

    In all, we’ve got more than 300 million guns here in the U.S., and Texas had a huge percentage of them.

    But Texans don’t like restrictions and regulations. And up till now—at least for the last 20 years or so— one restriction people in Texas hated was that they couldn’t walk around with their six gun in the open. Yes, they could walk around with AR15s on their shoulders, or 30.06 rifles hanging around their neck in public, but not handguns. So in June, the good governor of Texas got rid of that bit of fluff, signing into law a bill that now allows people to wear their holsters proudly in any and all public places. Kids soccer games, city parks and so forth.

   That still wasn’t enough for the gun loving nuts. So Gov. Abbott also signed into law a bill that will allow people to carry their hand guns visibly on all public college campuses—formerly places where guns were prohibited altogether, even licensed concealed weapons.

   Now I’m all for protecting yourself from the bad guys, but that’s rarely how it works. If the bad guy has his gun on you, well, you’re not gonna have time to draw before he kills you. And since your now-visible gun is gonna make that bad guy nervous, I’m picturing a lot more people carrying their weapons proudly will get blown away by bad guys. Or at the very least, have their guns taken by the bad guys.

   And a lot of college professors are going to be very nervous about handing out “F’s” to people. Who wants to give an “F” to a student with such low self-esteem that he/she needs to carry a visible weapon? “Hey professor! You gave me an F in Classic Literature? F yourself!” Boom!

    Unfortunately, those things are not the worst of these new laws. The worst part of these laws is that in reality they will only apply to white people. You get six black 18-year-olds walking into Walmart carrying guns—even water pistols—and you’re gonna get six dead black kids being carried out. The U.S. and particularly Texas, is very frightened of black men. They get killed with amazing frequency just for being black. Now imagine they’re standing on a known drug corner, just shooting the shit while waving a semi-automatic rifle around or practicing their quick-draw? It is not a pretty picture. It’s a freaking pool of blood with the kid asking “What about my second amendment rights?” as he lays dying, dropped by half-a-dozen cops.

    It’s going to get messy.

    Still, Gov. Abbott felt so good about expanding that second amendment that he went target shooting immediately after signing those bills into law.

It would all be funny if people weren’t dying and the prisons weren’t full.

Called a Winner but Feeling Like a Loser

As I frantically struggle with a cover story for the Fort Worth Weekly that's due tomorrow--and I mean frantically, as in I'm not getting it, I have written nothing worthwhile on it and it stinks so far--I just got the news that the Houston Press Club, the foremost press organization in Texas, has awarded me 2nd place as the Texas' print journalist of the year. Several stories, including two on criminalizing middle and high school truancy here in Texas and the long-lasting effect that has on students and their families, another on gas companies ripping off royalty payments to homeowners, and one more on former Texas Governor Rick Perry leaving millions uninsured because he refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act made up the package that was judged.
So why can't I get a handle on the new piece????? I don't know. I guess I'm just a loser. Got to keep working. Have a great day, everybody!

Dinner at the Gormans, Friday Night, June 5

You know, when you've been a chef and a dad and had to feed a room full of people--maybe 150 at the restaurants, though i preferred the New York joints which had about 46-60 seats--or a family full of 8 including sons' girlfriends and so on, you get used to cooking a bunch. And you get used to cooking several things at the same time. Simple as they might be, you've got your eye on two/three/seventeen different dishes at the same time. 
      Well, I don't cook in restaurants anymore and my kids have grown up and moved out and I never know whether I'm eating with just Madeleina or if Chepa, my wife/ex-wife is coming over with the kids and whether my son Italo will show up with his baby, Taylor Rain and his wife Sara, or if my other son, Marco will show and bring a friend or three. Or if Madeleina will bring two friends or not show up for dinner at all.
Then there are the dogs: Boots, the guard dog; Blackie, a big dog that only answers to that name who showed up 8 weeks or so ago and adopted us, and the two new border collies, Keys and Beautiful. Plus the cats, of course, and the birds ......
      So I cook chicken--big chicken for Boots and Blackie every day. Way cheaper and better than dog food in a bag or can. Nothing fancy and no, they do not sit at the dinner table. Just two, three pounds of chicken with some veggies and rice mixed in for each of them. The border collies get a pound of chicken livers mixed with rice and puppy food, or chicken gizzards or hearts--again, way, way cheaper than anything I can buy at the store. Livers, gizzards and heart are all bout $1.50 a pound. Mix that with left over rice or beans and such and they get the three pounds of food they need daily for about $2. each, rather than if I bought 6 cans at $1.50 each.
      But the family is unpredictable. Today I bought smoked virginia ham from the HEB deli, paper thin, with some slightly thicker baby swiss and a loaf of sesame seeded french bread for hot sandwiches for Madeleina and I. Then I made some homemade coleslaw and a potato/egg salad to go with it. Enough vinegar in each to cut the need for mayo to a minimum.
      But then I had to buy and make chicken wings in case Chepa and the girls came over, or Italo and my granddaughter and his wife, or Marco and his girlfriend.
And then I made pico de gallo—diced red onion, tomatoes and cilantro in fresh lime juice with good cracked black pepper—in case everyone came over and I came up short and needed to make some fat burritos with left over chicken, black beans, avocado, sour cream and cheese--along with the pico de gallo.
      So I've got about 4 meals ready. The liver and rice for the dogs smells really good. I hate liver but I might go for that and give them my chicken burrito or hot ham and baby swiss sandwich.
Either way, I'm keeping the cole slaw and potato/egg salad for me. Don't even think of taking that.
Dinner at the Gormans. More complex than might initially appear.

Madeleina Dancing All the Way....

Well, she's not looking at things properly but from my perspective, this is a good week for my Madeleina. She's graduating from high school. Just graduated an hour ago, actually. And she's slated to go to Tarleton State U in the fall, with at least a good portion of her way paid for by grants and awards and the rest by dear old dad's check book. Her best friend is going there, so she's got something to start with. And one of the people I worked with, Dan Malone, a writer for the Fort Worth Weekly up until about 2005 or 2006, is teaching there. He's won a Pulitzer for her reporting, so if you're planning to study journalism, you can't do much better. Anywhere. For any price.
    More: Two days ago at a senior function, she won a beautiful trophy for "best supporting actress" in a play she recently did. She was fantastic. Not the lead, but a great supporting player. One trophy given. She got it.
    On Sunday she went with me to the Union Pacific Rail Yard in Fort Worth, one of the biggest rail yards in the US. We had to breach security to get in--at several different places--but we did and I had her take photos. She's got a keen eye and takes good, rock-steady pics. The art director today asked if he could buy a few from her for my cover story next week. She's non-plussed by the idea, but I can tell you, it takes years to get your first photos published for money. And here she's got it on during her second or third shoot. That's several hundred bucks out of the blue! That's a credit! Yikes!
   Somehow, this is not ringing in as a good week for her. She's sad about high school ending though she's detested most of high school. Just a little afraid of change, I reckon. But if she saw things the way I'm seeing them for her, well, she'd see a very different picture than what she's seeing.

Someone Asked about Chikungunya virus

Someone Asked about Chikungunya virus. It's in a class of viruses known as alphaviruses, which he/she said were epidemic in some parts of the Caribbean, Columbia, and Venezuela. He/she said that "macrophages infected by 

the virus persist in the synovial (joint) tissue long (sometimes years) 
after the infection has been defeated by the body's immune system, 
leaving no traces in the blood."

    He/she then said they'd had sapo, which relieved symptoms for three months, but that after three months a neck ache began that spurred on an entire systemic polyarthritis. He/she wanted to know if the Sapo/Kambo could have been responsible for the serious relapse, and what could he/she do to eliminate the chronic pain caused by the polyarthritis. I'm not a doc, as you all know. But stil, I had to try to help. This is what I wrote:

X: Well, you've acquired one of the few diseases in South America that I have not had the pleasure of having. There are not many that have missed me over the years. So you need to understand that the comments I'm about to make deal with the general polyarthritis, or rheumatoid arthritis and not your specific type of arthritis. These are general comments. And I'm not a doc but will put the question to a friend of mine who is and has dealt with a great deal of illness in Central and South America. I will pass along his comments when I get them in a day or two.

     My feelings: the single best natural medicine I know for boosting the immune system and alleviating the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, arthritis, bursitis and so on is Una de Gato, cat's claw. Having spent six months in a hospital and a couple of additional years very, very sick with juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis as a youngster--which periodically attacks me as an adult--I can vouch for the medicine. Three/four sticks of good Una de Gato in three liters of water, steeped just to the point of steaming--way below boiling--for about 12 hours, will yield 1 to 1 1/2 liters of the dark, sour medicine. One gulp in the morning and one at night and your T-cell count bounces 20-50 points per day. For those suffering from severe auto-immune problems--AIDS, for instance--that bounce of several hundred T-cells in just a couple of weeks can make the difference in living or dying. 

     So for any arthritis issues, or any auto-immune issues, I suggest Una de Gato as a first line of defense.

     But Sapo/Kambo cleans at a much deeper level. It is a restart button on your entire system. Because it is bioactive--better stated: Because the peptides in Sapo/Kambo are bioactive--it does no harm. What it does is sweep the garbage out of your system. I'm sure you know that. It eliminates toxins from organs, veins, arteries. I do not think it would have, or could have, been the spark that caused the pain in your neck. Rather, I think the stiffness in your neck, which led to the polyarthritic condition, was simply the disease fighting to stay alive. Diseases, like the rest of us, do not like being killed. 

     So if you were my patient--and I know you are not, and that my comments are general in nature--what I would probably recommend is regular use of Una de Gato--three weeks on, three weeks off--along with a Sapo/kambo regimen of TWICE daily use for three-five days, then a week off, then another three-five days of twice daily use, then a week off and then a third round of three-to-five days of twice daily use. I think that would eliminate the problem for good. I do understand that the Yaminawa suggest doing it every other day. But I was taught by the Matses, who did it differently. Either way would do your body good, but I can only recommend the way I was taught.

    And there is no issue with taking the Una de Gato and Sapo/Kambo simultaneously.

I hope that helps.

Peter G

Mortgage Done!

Well, that's it. The mortgage is done. Do not owe another penny on this house. Insurance and taxes paid through Jan 1, 2016. Made the last payment last week. Today I went to the bank site and there was my Chase credit card, but beneath it was nothing. It was as if the mortgage never existed. No note of congratulations, but also no note reminding me of the next payment. Started out with $73,800 on January 11, 2002. Finished in 13 years, 5 months. It wasn't easy, but it got done. Now it's time to pretend I still have that mortgage payment, plus the extra $600 a month I've been putting toward it for the last four or five years and use that to pay off credit cards, get Madeleina a good used car to use at college in the Fall, and all that jazz.
    Unreal. And it doesn't really feel like anything yet because I made the last payment just a few days ago. I will be it will feel like something next month when I don't have to pay it. Then I'll be jumping for joy. Right now, I'm just thrilled that the universe allowed me to get 'er done. Better or worse, it's now ours all the way. Bank ain't got no papers on me. Hooray!
    I'm gonna guess that Chase won't send me a congratulatory note because they bought my loan from Century 21 about 6 years ago, figuring I was gonna pay interest for 24 more years. I still owed about $65,000 then and the bank was drooling over the $90,000 in interest that was going to produce. Didn't happen. The bank can't be happy. Oh, well.

A really good hour

Well, it's been a really good hour. First off, I found out I'm a finalist for Journalist of the Year in Texas with the Houston Press Club, the premier press club in Texas. I don't know if I'm a finalist in the "Under 50,000" category or the "Over 50.000 category" but I'm in there somewhere. I've won it twice and came in second a couple of years ago. Winning it is a big deal because there are some very, very good journalists here in Dallas, Houston, Denton, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Austin, Amarillo, Lubbock, Odessa, El Paso and elsewhere. When I've lost in the past, I always look at the winning entries and the judges--generally a big time university program from another state--has always been right. The work that has beaten me has been exemplary! I try to keep upping my game to stay on top, but it's hard, hard, hard.
    Then, I got notice that Shaman Portal--just plug in shamanportal.org--a great resource, named my book Sapo in My Soul, as their Book of the Month.
    Then, I got word that I will have access to the fantastic Fort Worth Davidson rail yard in a couple of days--it's the heart of this city and I really want to climb into an engine and drive that baby a little ways.
    Then a check I've been waiting for arrived.
    Then, several sticks of sapo, which I thought were lost in the mail, arrived. And they are beautiful, filled with wonderful medicine.
    And now I'm gonna start cooking dinner. And tomorrow someone comes to put in a new septic tank since the rain we've had crushed ours.
Is that a good hour or what?
Thanks, universe!

Marco Was a Big Help Today

Every now and then, my younger son, Marco, comes through when you least expect it. And when he does, it's a treat, because he's very focused.

    He came by yesterday to talk about a game he's designing and the challenges it presents. He talked about how he no longer looks at computer games the same way, instead of enjoying playing, he now sees the work that was done to make the game. For instance, one example that wasn't over my head, was that the computer always knows where your player is and will kill it every time--unless you build in a certain number of misses to give the human player a chance. "So it's up to me, the designer, to say that the robot can only hit the human once in four or five or ten times. Otherwise, the robot would always kill the character moved by the human," he said.

    When it was my turn to talk I complained about the house. We've lost shingles, the dogs have eaten through a couple of pipes so that gray water, which we run out of the kitchen sink into the back yard, not just sits under the house. And the dogs are under the house and muddy and I won't let them in wet, and with all the rain we've had on top of the pipes--they also tore the pipe from the washer and dryer that goes into the septic tank so that water just pools up--it's a flipping mess out there. Then the dogs uncovered the septic tank--dug down to it and somehow broke the top so that it's been filling with mud from the rain. And the rain has prevented mowing the lawn. Should I go on? I know other people have it one million times worse than me, but it still sucks to have paid off a house this week that's in such shambles. And it was overwhelming me, because there is all the regular work to keep a house going and the work to pay for everything that has to get done. So yeah, I was feeling sorry for myself. Even though I know most of the people in the world have it harder than me. So I was hating myself for being such a wimp as well.
    And it wasn't a lot of work to fix it. But with my leg and the open wounds, even covered, I can't go anywhere near septic water. 

    Marco to the rescue. Yesterday, after we talked, he said he'd come over today to help. And he did. I told him first thing needed was to cut the grass in the near back yard, so that we could properly lay out new pipes for the gray water. That meant fixing the riding mower, which froze during the last several weeks of rain. He got that done while I cleaned up the near back yard of firework paper, things the new dogs had chewed to pieces--wood, sox, a couple of brushes, grill utensils, a couple of old hoses now filled with holes. Then I rode the thing and did the near back yard while Marco nailed a piece of commercial corrugated plastic over the 6 foot hole in the skirt of our house. Then he installed a new pipe section to the washer/dryer outlet and got that in place. By that time I'd gotten one of the three large far back yards (outside the inner fencing, but inside the outer fencing) cut. Then he laid the pipe in a ditch he dug--a 50-foot ditch just six inches deep to keep the new dogs from tearing it apart again--so that the gray water will now run out past the near back yard. On Monday I've hired people to clean out the septic tank. I bought a new lid. Once that's done, I think the plumbing around here will be back in working order.

    You know, I needed help on this one. I'm very glad Marco volunteered. He came ready to work and worked well. And my leg didn't get exposed to junk that could make it worse. I always love my sons and daughter, Madeleina. But sometimes they really, really come through, and then I love them the same, but add an extra dash of proud to it.

Fridge Cleaning Time

Well, after weeks of rainy days--almost Seattle like, down here bucolic Joshua, TX--I've run out of things to do in the house. Laundry? Done and redone. Vacuum? Done and redone and will get redone again if the damned border collies, playing in the mud under the house get in here again! Bathroom? Scrubbed and rescrubbed. What was left? Oh, yeah, the fridge. Did it last on the day I came home from Peru about 3 months ago. How bad could it be?
      Well, the sacred medicines were fine. Most of the cheeses were fine. But those five nearly-full containers of sour cream? They'd turned into a science experiment. That stick of butter I lost last month? Found it. Somehow worked its way into the organic strawberries I forgot about and the mold took over everything. And while I've been buying zucchini and yellow squash twice a week, turns out there were a few that were lost in the veggie drawers that were turning into a puddle of goop.
     Nothing appeared to have opened, yet there was some dried, sticky brown stuff on the back wall of the fridge--I mean, probably 4 ounces of sticky stuff, which probably came from a quart of something that someone spilled and decided not to tell me about.
     It's all clean now, and I've thrown out enough garbage to fill an entire kitchen bag. Who knew the jar of sauerkraut was empty, or that there were three open jars of dill pickle spears or 7 mustards in the back?
     So I'm taking a break, assessing it all, tossing what needs tossing, having a glass of wine to get through it, and I swear, just like I've done for the last 45 years since I've been on my own, that I'm never gonna let that fridge happen again. Only this time I mean it.

Money Oh's!, Money Woes!

Okay, so I'm not complaining about anything here. That's first off. But I am going to think out loud for a minute and for some reason, I think that might be of interest to some of you. Of course, I might be completely nuts and all of you break your computers once I start....please don't do that, just skip this blog piece.
    Why skip? Because this is about my personal finances, which no one might think is of any interest. I got it.
     Here's the deal. I now owe $2200 on my mortgage. It wasn't large to begin with, about $72,000, but now it's within reach to close it next month. After that, I'll be responsible for about $4000 a year in home insurance and local home taxes. Very doable.
     But I owe about $14,000 on 3 credit cards. Not a ton, but more than I would like. Some of it was picked up in small quantities--getting groceries when I had no cash, for instance--but most of it was picked up with some medical stuff, a couple of trips to Peru with guests where I lost a couple/few grand and had to cover it with credit cards. So no big deal, but finishing the house won't finish the debt.
     Then I owe Madeleina $2200 that I've borrowed since I began--and she as well--getting social security a couple of years ago. Again, no big deal, but I got to get it taken care of.
     Then I owe my son Italo $2000 for the Lincoln sports car that he owned, got wrecked, fixed and wanted to sell. I had to buy it because he was proud of the work he'd done in getting it all fixed. Still, there is a $2 grand note that needs to be paid.
     Then there is about $10,000 worth of work that needs to be done here at the house: New front fence, 200' long; new roof, new living room flooring; $1,000 to get my little green truck with 300,000 miles to pass inspection and give me another 5 years, and a host of small stuff that everybody who owns a home has to take care of routinely.
     So while I'm very glad that I might be out from under the mortgage--which has been getting a $600 additional monthly payment for a few years, which is why I'll be finished in 13 years and not 30--I will still need $18,000 to clear all debt, then another $10,000 to fix the house/grounds.  
     So I need to come up with about $30 grand.
     Guess I better start working harder/faster.
     That's all. Wasn't so bad, was it? Just listening to a dreamer...
Thanks,
Peter G

That Time of Year in Texas

Well, it's that time of year in Texas. We've had probably 20 days of rain in the last 25 days, making lawn mowing impossible but keeping the grasses--which will be brown in August after no rain in 50 days--growing wildly. We've had so much water the septic tank flood plain won't hardly accept any more, meaning we're running all water out of the house via hoses except the toilet, just to keep it at a functioning level. And it's also that time of year when every goddamned sip of coffee finds a new bug in my mouth. I just pulled out the cutest little thing--about 1/4 inch long, narrow. It wasn't in there when I poured the coffee two minutes ago, so it must have made its way in unnoticed while I put my sneakers on. But then there are moths, the crazy long-legged mosquitos that don't harm anyone so I don't kill them, lady bugs, small bees, fruit flies. Heck, have a glass of wine and you have enough fruit flies in it in two minutes to do a high school science fair experiment.
    Funny: I don't remember this in New York, and I don't remember anything this thick in Peru or even India.
    Just Texas. This time of year when the windows are open and the rain pours down.

July 2 Amazon Trip Coming Up Soon

Good morning, everybody. Just a reminder that I've got a few slots still open for my July 2-July11 Amazon Jungle Jaunt. Real jungle, dirt under your fingernails, lots of good medicine, including ayahuasca, Sapo, nu-nu and probably some local magic mushrooms--all offered at the right time, of course, and under the right guidance. And you don't have to take any of them. The trip is still a blast because we go night canoeing, swamp walking, high jungle medicine collecting, ride on fantastic riverboats overnight on the Amazon, collect wild foods, swim in a lake that's home to several families of pink river dolphins, bathe in the glorious Aucayacu. Trip cost: $1900. Does not include your airfare to Iquitos or back home, and does not include your walking around money--for presents for your friends and families--but does include everything else. We pick you up at the airport and drop you back off when it's time to leave. It's a very cool trip and only a few slots open because I keep the trips small at a maximum of 12 guests. To join, just send me an email at peterg9 at yahoo.com Do not forget that 9 at the end of the peterg, okay?
It's gonna be good.
Thanks for listening,
Peter G

A Column for Skunk I'm Working On

So this is raw and needs to be reworked, but I am pissed at the Texas State Legislature. So that's what column #86 for Skunk Magazine, the only mag that ever gave me a column, is going to start with. Here's what I'm thinking...

DRUG WAR FOLLIE #86

Rights? You ain’t got no stinking rights! Just ask Texas or the Feds: if they get away with what they’re trying, it’s gonna be more of a freaking mess than it already is.

Ah, Texas! You’re dry, mostly flat, largely desert, regularly attacked by monster hurricanes and gigantic, killing tornadoes, and you’re run by a handful of good old boy families that keep most of the money to themselves and then make most of the laws the rest of us live with. And the U.S. Congress isn’t much better, though it represents a considerably more beautiful land mass.

   Why mention Texas in a column? Because if you don’t live here you cannot imagine what the politicians propose. They want to make it illegal to video police officers beating or killing people. They are trying to revive a bill that would force women to look at pictures of their fetuses prior to abortions, forbid women to have abortions after 20 weeks, even if the woman’s life is in danger. Hell, a few of the pukes tried to pass a bill that would force a mother to carry a fetus to term even if it was declared dead. You see why I’m pissed off? I don’t have to love the democrats to hate the extreme republicans. And down here in Texas we have what’s called home rule. That means that any city or municipality with a population over 5,000 can make rules they like. It mostly applies to traffic speeds, whether or not you can have an old mobile home on your property, what local sales taxes will be. That sort of thing. Not always nice, but pretty regular stuff. But they’re on the brink of making a state law—which always supersedes local law—that cities and municipalities cannot make rules regarding gas drilling--a bane down here in natural-gas-rich Texas--that are considered unreasonable. What that means is that if a town votes to not allow gas wells within 1,000 feet of homes, hospitals or schools, and the state says 300 feet is reasonable, the local law will be abrogated. Towns that have banned hydraulic fracking of gas wells have already been put on notice that those bans are unreasonable. They want the gas, they’ll get it and the hell with what the local city wants. This is the same group that criminalizes truancy for kids as young as 12, and is demanding federal monies for schools with the right to use the money as they see fit rather than having it earmarked for schools. This is the same group that insists that Creationism be taught as history alongside—and as equally possible—as evolution, that the world is 6,000 years old, that Jesus rode dinosaurs, and that religion belongs in public schools.  The same group that listens to TransCanada say that the Keystone Pipeline will produce about 46 permanent jobs and then claims it will produce 250,000 jobs. This is the same group that is insisting that Jade Helm 15 is not a military exercise but a military operation that will imprison or kill several million Texans this summer.  Oh, and two bills that will kill anti-LGBT-discrimination laws are making their way through the Texas legislature as well. Ain’t these legislators special? As in ‘specially fucked humans’ of course.

     I’m a balancer. I’m here to balance the insane rhetoric of this group of politicians who know nothing with some sense and sensibility. But I am way fucking outnumbered here in Texas.

    And the Feds ain’t much better. A caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives just voted to make it a law that doctors who perform abortions should be arrested and face five years in jail, despite abortions being legal.

    Wake up and smell the shit, everybody. You’re probably facing similar repressive nonsense in Canada from people who call themselves Conservatives and who claim to want less government involvement in their lives. They are all lying through their teeth. I’m upset and I hope you motherfuckers know it. We need to say that roses are roses and shit is shit. And yes, you can video those cops who kill unarmed people who are already in cuffs.

A little earthquake at my house

So it was about 6 PM. I'd just come home from a meeting at the Fort Worth Weekly, shopped for dinner—double cut pork chops I'm gonna stuff with fresh veggies and fresh mozzarella and top with a nice au jus, then served with a good salad—and sat down at my desk to see what was what with the afternoon email. Suddenly the whole house shifted, like a wave went under it, pushing me first left, then right. I thought maybe one of the big dogs had jumped into the house through the front window behind me. No. So I called out to my daughter, Madeleina--who was sitting in the huge living room, a converted garage that has a cement flooring under the needs-to-be-replaced carpeting--"Honey? Did you feel anything?"

"Dad! What the freak was that? Everything shook. I thought the roof was gonna fall in!"

"That was an earthquake, darling."

"That was so cool!"

And it was. So long as the next one isn't stronger. And that was the first one we've had in the 13 years we've lived here in Joshua.

Single person, feeding themselves, little money

So someone I know is in dire straights. They want to know what to do for food as a single person with little money. Here's my initial response:
      Roasting a whole chicken costs about $5. That's four huge portions. Good basmati rice, about $6 for a five pound bag--enough to feed 40 people. So roast a whole chicken, cook rice, about 17th of the bag. Both will last for several days in the fridge. Mangos are going for $.50 each right now, so you can add a mango a day for half-a-buck. Lettuce, good romaine, is going for $1 a head and a head will last 3-4 days. Broccoli is about $1.60 a head and that will last 5 days for a single person. So for $8.50 you've got a main meal for 4-5 days. Add a quart of oil for a month, which comes to $.65 per week. Add salt and pepper: $.10 a week. Breakfast: Three eggs with toast: Eggs, free range, are $3.00 a dozen or less. Bread by the loaf, good quality, is $3. a loaf. Both of those are good for several days. Add organic yogurt, 6 ounces for lunch, at $4 a quart, and you're up to about $10 for four-five days. Large naval oranges are currently $.50 each. Add one. That's breakfast, lunch, dinner. Meat, eggs, fruit, veggies, yoghurt, salad. Dressing might bring you up to $10.50 for four days, or $75 a month. I can give you recipes that will make all of that fantastic, give you variation with beans and veggies and so forth. Money left over for inexpensive ice cream and a few apples a couple of times a week and you still come in at less than $20 a week. Substitute lentils for meat and wow! You're on your way. 

Step Up for Al Giordano and Narconews.com if You Can

Time to step up for a friend of mine. Dear all. My friend, Al Giordano, moved to Mexico in the late 1990s to watch the revolution in the south play out down there. He quickly wound up realizing that the key issues involved drugs/money/corruption. To lend his hand in getting the word out, he started Narconews.com, a website devoted to uncovering the drugs/money/corruption. With few resources, few helpers, he got the website up. And he got people like me to report on nefarious goings on in Peru when I had the Cold Beer Blues Bar there. I'd write; he'd print, and over the course of a couple of years we stopped at least three U.S. black-ops from happening; I got/he printed/Shoemaker took the proof photos of what really happened with the missionary plane shootdown in Peru. And Al brought a lot to the table himself: Enough that he was brought to court in New York in a landmark lawsuit that he won against a corrupt banking operation. Good Latin American drug war writers wrote incisive stories. He was the only English language site reporting on the goings on, not just in Mexico but throughout Latin America, the Islands, South America. He got Bill Conroy aboard and boy, did that reporter open some cans of worms. And then he started a School of Authentic Journalism, a once a year shot at bringing in young reporters/videographers to meet with experienced drug war journalists. And to make it available to those young journalists, he offered as many scholarships as he could. I was invited a couple of times as a teacher but since he'd given all his money to the students, there was no money to fly me down there, and since journalists are notoriously underpaid, I never attended. I regret it because I'd love to have that credential on my resumé.
    Over the years, Al's gotten by with the help of a donor or two who made ends meet. That means getting Al enough money to make his food--which, if you read his stuff on Facebook looks pretty darned good--keep a roof over his head, keep the narconews.com website running and pay for the annual School of Authentic Journalism.
    Well, this year he's stuck. He's a proud man who is asking for help who would not ask unless it was for a good cause. The school has produced a lot of good journalists who have not been co-opted by corporations, a lot of journalists who break stories nobody else has.
     So here's the deal. Go to the kickstarter campaign below and give him $5-$5000 bucks--yeah, most of you can only afford $5 but I had a moment of wishful thinking--and let's keep the school and narconews.com operating.
     And if it matters, when my leg was being eaten away by bacteria two years ago, Al found $1000 for me. All I had in the bank for him today was $20. Not a fair exchange at all, but proof that he's one of the good guys.
    Here's the donation site:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1652340249/the-2015-school-of-authentic-journalism

Oy vey! More food stuff!

Sunday Afternoon: Italo and Taylor Rain came over this morning and I took them out for tacos at a place in Godley, TX, (Del Norte Tacos) that's got such a name for itself that people drive from Fort Worth just to get them. It's really good. I mean, really good. About $4 a taco but each has 1/4 pound of meat that's been smoked over hickory and something else I can't put my finger on.
     We bought an extra two for Madeleina, then Italo took his daughter and me on a back road ride that was just glorious.
      Perfect morning. We returned to find Madeleina had re-cleaned the house we just cleaned yesterday, including her room--first time in months!--and the scented candles were on, the place smelled fantastically and all was good with the world. I went shopping early, thinking that since no one had called/written, we were eating alone. And since Madeleina brought up chicken cacciatore yesterday, I bought peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and a chicken. Enough for six people.
     But Madeleina's friend Patrick--who worked with me yesterday--came over, so now were are three. Then Michael and Dian--whom we freaking adore--decided to come. Now we're five. Plenty of cacciatore for all.
    Then Chepa called. She's sick. She needs my lime-chicken. That's chicken breast breaded with breadcrumbs mixed with good parmesan cheese, sauteed.  Once it's sauteed on both sides for color, I squeeze lime juice, fresh, onto it, and sprinkle with more parmesan cheese. Then I bake it till done. It is my invention and spectacular. I cooked it restaurants as a special for years and probably sold out every night it appeared.
    But Chepa's new kids, Sierra and Alexa, don't like that. And the cacciatore will be too much. So I'm gonna make some drumsticks for them, then feed the rest to the dogs for dinner. Except the new pups, who are not great with bones yet, so I'll mix their food with some chicken livers I have and will cook.
    Okay, so we went from two to 8, and maybe 9 if Marco comes over or we send a plate back with Chepa for him--cause we love him--and I've got a feeling that Italo and Taylor might show up as well. Dinner for 11. Four separate meals, including dogs. Time to get to work, I guess. I've only got 1 hour and 20 minutes to get this done.
     I love living, and I love a bit of pressure. Gonna be great! You're in the neighborhood, stop by. We'll have plenty!

Still Doing Manly Deeds

Sometimes I feel so freaking old. My back hurts, my sciatica hurts, my fleshless right foreleg hurts. Damn. Can't walk for not breathing.
    And then I defy it all. Today that meant hiring one of Madeleina's friends, strapping young Patrick and asking him to help me finish the little fence around the back porch. I'd done three sections, about 16 feet, but the last section was 10 feet long and tough to keep square while I was holding the 90 pound weight and simultaneously measuring, hammering, leveling and so forth. So I offered $20 an hour for 3-4 hours and he showed up and within 45 minutes we were in sync. Fence section got done, then we moved onto the bigger yard fence and after an hour that was repaired. Then we moved on to painting the fence we built--plus the part I built alone--and then, while I washed the brushes, he swept and I cooked him a burger for lunch.
    Then I paid him $70 for 3 1/2 hours.
     He got more than that, of course. He learned how to handle a hammer from someone who hits nails straight and hard and buries them in three, four shots. He learned how to level a section of fence and clean a work area. He learned how to fix a larger fence. And I got a lot too: I was stalling on the last piece of fence because it was too ungainly to work with alone. So I got my work done. He got paid. Well.
     I think everybody's happy and a bunch of manly work got done around here. That's something.