Food Needs All Over the Place this Week!!!!

Normally, I cook to my body's needs. I feel the urge for iron, I cook spinach. I always need good blood, so I always include onions and fresh garlic. I need some carbos, I make rice or couscous.
   But this week has been all over the freaking map and I'm looking at my leftovers and not knowing what to make of it, other than that my body is in complete turmoil.
   I've got two lamb chops with a nice madeira sauce in a plate in the fridge.
   I made a good New York steak the other day, with onions and mushrooms and garlic, then ate the mushrooms, onions and garlic and fed nearly the entire 8 ounce steak to the dogs.
   I made sausages and sauerkraut--a combination of crispy and bavarian, with white vinegar and good cracked black pepper--and left the sausages for the dogs.
   Madeleina was home so I made a good chicken parmesana, but cannot bring myself to eat the leftover piece for some odd reason.
    Yesterday I made a smash of veggies: Broccoli, Cauliflower, Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Red Pepper, Tomato, Onion, Garlic and could only eat about 8 bites.
    Chepa said she was coming over so I made shrimp and salmon with an Eastern flavor or Teriyaki, ginger, garlic, cilantro, and could only eat two bites.
    Tonight I'm making Tacos for the second or third time in my life. Something tells me I need the salt and garlic that will go into the chopped beef, along with tomato, and then I'll put a little of that into a taco shell, add good romaine and cabbage, add pico de gallo (fresh cilantro, onion, tomato in lime juice), a spoonful of black beans, topped with good cheddar I already shredded in one of those old time 4-sided shredders. I want that with spinach and some of yesterday's left over veggies. Will I eat it? I don't know. My body will tell me.
   Right now, I have no connection with my body. It tells me what to make and then is not interested in eating it. Very freaking strange after all these years. Yikes!!!!!

Beautiful day here in bucolic Joshua, Texas

Well, it's a beautiful day here in bucolic Joshua, Texas. And everything is going well except for a couple of small bumps in the road. One of those bumps is my old Ford Ranger. While I was in Peru Italo made a present of rebuilding the entire engine from the block up. Purrs like a kitten. Cost was $1,000 just for parts but no sweat. Treated the truck to a new windshield and two used but good front tires, another $300. Then the clutch started slipping last week. Italo had not rebuilt that. Now it's bad and I'll need to put another several hundred into it to get the clutch redone and the slave cylinder in the transmission fixed. Damnit, total of two grand and I'll still need bushings for another $300.
    So I've no car at the moment. Which makes it hard to do my job as a journalist.
    And the air conditioner that I just spent about $700 on is on the fritz as well. The pan that collects the condensation is just overflowing and so it must be stuffed up but I can't even get to it and don't know how to clear it so I just can't use it until Italo--he's always the hero lately--takes a look and fixes it. Fortunately, it's not the condenser that was recently replaced, but it's still a pain in the neck, what with water dripping and the ceiling sheetrock ready to fall.
    Then my Ipad was borrowed and somehow has come up missing.
    And several people who said they were signing up for the January and February Amazon tours--I mean said they were transferring deposits via paypal immediately--have not done so and i cannot dun them or I will lose them. Of course, I may already have lost them.
    Then someone on social media made a really nasty and WAY OUT OF LINE comment about me on a forum about ayahuasca and since I don't know the person and to the best of my knowledge have never met him, it will take on a life of its own among his friends and I'll look like a schmuck with no way to defend myself. Just responding that he's full of shit will only stir the pot. I did ask him to be more, much more specific, in terms of time, place and so forth (I know he has nothing because, as I said, I never met this person), but he has not and will not respond.
   By chance, the same day that appeared and was pointed out to me, Madeleina happened to be home from college and asked, out of the blue, whether I'd ever actually witnessed negative black magic. I showed her what the guy wrote and said: "Darling, that's black magic. Someone, for some reason only they know, is jealous of me and decided to make up a complete lie about me that will affect future clients who read it. The administrator of the site has asked the man for some proof--it not only involved me specifically, but another member of my Amazon team--and will take the message down if the fellow cannot provide satisfactory specifics. So yea, Madeleina, that's black magic in the negative sense of the word."
    And I think the administrator will only give the guy another day or two to respond before she pulls the plug, but the comment, and subsequent comments, have already been seen by several hundred people, darnit! Fortunately, a few of the posters have come to my team and my defense, calling bs on the whole thing so it's not as bad as it could be, but still, I don't like it.
    Hey, other than those few details, the world is freaking beautiful down here in bucolic Joshua! Have a great day everybody. And yes, the car will be repaired and run beautifully for another year or two; the ipad will be found, the guests will eventually join the trip with their deposits. And the bum who wrote the nasty thing will have to deal with his own karma. So it's gonna be okay after the clouds lift.

Trump's Video and Hillary's Bank Speeches

Well, it's October 8, and we're about 31 days from a presidential election here in the USA. And lots of senators and representatives up for election in congress as well, along with local elections. And last night two huge events occurred: One was the release of some of Hillary Clinton's private speeches, made while she was not in US government service, to bankers and other bigwigs, who paid her $225,000 or so per speech. The other involved an 11 years old tape of Donald Trump going off on women.
    Thus far, what I've seen of Hillary's speeches, while I don't agree with all of her positions, look well-reasoned and thoughtful: she lets the bankers know that they're being watched and should act accordingly, is for single payer healthcare, is for open trade (not exactly sure what she means, but she's careful not to use the phrase "free trade"), and would like to see Mexico, Canada, and the US as a large trading block. She discusses "public and private positions"--public being what you are aiming for, and private being what part of that you're willing to compromise on to get the rest of it. She recognizes that she is no longer middle class, financially, but says she remembers being middle class well, and empathizes with people struggling. Among a host of other things.
   The Trump tape, made while taping (I believe) a special episode of his show, has him discussing his inability to not kiss beautiful women (I'm a kissing machine), even if he's just met them, talking about trying to fuck a married woman and not getting lucky, and then saying that when you're a star you can do anything you like, including just grabbing "pussy", and get away with it.
   I'm not really surprised by either revelation: Hillary showed herself not to be beholden to Wall Street, and Trump showed that he has always been what he is now, minimally a misogynist, and maximally a sexual abuser.
   Neither was I altogether surprised with Trump's subsequent apology, taped in Trump tower and released several hours after the tape went viral. In it he noted that the words didn't represent who he really is, and that he apologized for saying them; he said being on the campaign had changed and humbled him; and that Hillary Clinton had made a mess of America and that Bill Clinton was a serial abuser of women--a subject he promises to delve into more deeply in the next few days.
   Unless additional Hillary Clinton speeches are released that hold some dark secrets, the bombshell dropped on her was nothing. She wasn't promising the bankers special treatment, playing the public for a fool behind closed doors, nothing.
   Unless Donald Trump pulls a miracle out of his Make America Great Again hat, his blockbuster reveal should cost him another 7 percent of the electorate. It was an old tape, but in line with how he's spoken about women as recently as the last couple of weeks.
   Get out and vote, everybody. Make your picks carefully. They count.

Finally Responding to the Brain Dead

Okay, I'm tired of the freaking meme that this presidential election is about the lesser of two evils. So someone posted something about that on facebook and I finally decided to respond. Their argument was to copy and paste a meme that said, essentially, isn't it a sad state of politics when the only reason to vote for one candidate is to keep the other candidate out of office. My response:

Nonsense. Hillary Clinton is brilliant. She's worked her whole life for women's rights--even as the first woman on Walmart's board--around the world, she's the one who got the first responders the medical attention they needed after 9-11, and has never stopped fighting for more for them. She's the one who fought for "equal pay for equal work" which resulted in the Lily Ledbetter law; she's the one who introduced a new model for healthcare in the US--which is why the Republicans have run a 25-year attack on her that amounts to NOTHING. Her foundation, with Bill, has helped millions and saved the lives of hundreds of thousands and will continue to to that and she's never taken a dime from it--nor has Bill or Chelsea. She's worked tirelessly for the people--and even though I don't like all her choices, I can recognize a good and smart person when I see one. Smart because she can evolve. DADT that Bill pushed was great at the time; it led to President Obama being able to allow everyone to work in the military, regardless of sexual orientation. Of course Bill could not have pushed for that at the time, so he moved the goal posts with DADT. Now she's behind gay marriage and will defend it to the death. Natural evolution of an intelligent person. People accuse her of authorizing Bush's invasion of Iraq. She didn't. The vote didn't do that. The vote was on : If weapons of mass destruction can be found and proven, will the president have authority to go to war? She said yes. Bush lied, and entered the war illegally. Not something she was for. She's just way too smart and elegant for almost all of the people. People accuse her of taking things from the white House when she left. The President is allowed to receive gifts. They had a ledger of 94,000 gifts and took parts of 14,000. About 200 turned out to be gifts that the givers said were for the White House, not the Clintons. They were returned, or purchased. Girl ain't perfect, but she's a sort of hippy chick that I would have tried to get close to in a minute. And she's grown up to be a sparkling humanist, despite some errors. You don't like Syria? Well, Assad the asshole was killing his own people at a genocidal level. They had to have a revolution. Ghaddafi the same. Had to go, given the US idea that we are world police. I'd just as soon stop being world police, but that was her job. Emails and Benghazi are the pathetic ejaculations of idiot retards who cannot see the forest for the weeds.She has grown constantly, has withstood the shit thrown at her for 25 years, has no family or patriarcal political influence--her husband was the freaking governor Arkansas for Christ's sake, which doesn't get you into any political "In" circles, and paid a grand $30,000 a year, essentially minimum wage, so they didn't do it for the money. So I'm not gonna go with "this election is about the lesser of two evils." I'm gonna shout that she will shut down bad banks, she will go after Wall Street--why the fuck you think they threw money at her? They're scared to death of her and tried to buy her but it won't work and never worked! She's a fighter for regular people because her record shows that and she grew up the daughter of a drape maker, while her husband grew up an abused kid whose father left and step-father abused him. These are not political big shots, no matter what the refuckingpublicans say. These are extreme outsiders who have tried their best to help people all their lives. Did Bill fuck up a lot? You bet. His revenge on the MTV kids who asked him about pot smoking was a draconian prison system. Horrible. If I were allowed I'd hit him senseless every day for a year or 10 to remind him that his retaliation for embarrassment was the loss of a million man-years in incarceration. But he's not running. She is. She's fucked up too, in my book. But she helped pinpoint Bin Laden, got the deal done in Iran, will continue to kill the Keystone Pipeline and eliminate TPP while protecting Planned Parenthood, fighting for a decent wage, forcing companies to take a financial hit if they continue to off-shore jobs--which will encourage them to bring those jobs back--and will actually answer some emails from regular people.

Wow! Two weeks passed that quickly!

I was thinking I'd written about Mr. Trump just a few days ago and now realize it was Sept. 19, about two weeks ago. Wow! Who knew things were spinning so quickly??? Certainly not I. So what's happened since then? Well, we had a bar-be-que for my son Marco's birthday; I wrote a column for Skunk Magazine, my 96th for them going back about 10-11 years, since their inception. I missed one deadline because I didn't know when the deadline was--it gets moved and I don't get a print calendar, so I'm always guessing, as as they print just 8 copies a year and my stuff has to be timely, well, I guessed wrong once in 10-11 years. Then I missed one column when I was in the hospital, either with my flesh-eating bacteria or my exploded intestine, I forget which. I do remember being in a lot of pain, however, and writing the editor an email that I just couldn't do it that month. I love my column. Then I had a few people in to do sapo--frog sweat--and sold a couple of my trips for January and June. Then this weekend I had several guests in for 4 days for medicine ceremonies. Oh, and Chepa and I are working through the divorce. Not easy, not hard. She has her house, I have mine. We don't mind being married, even though we've been separated for 15 years and not been together for maybe 10 of those. We get along. She comes for coffee in the morning. She makes me laugh. She's the mother of my kids. But I guess it's time to just get this done. We didn't do it for years because Madeleina was young and the courts would have awarded her custody and I was not going to take a chance on her moving elsewhere again, forcing me to move again. But Madeleina's old enough now to not need either one of us, not really, so it makes sense. And who knows? Maybe I'll enjoy writing "my ex" rather than "My wife/ex-wife". I guess we'll see. We'll file next week and have it done 60 days after that.
    So nothing much going on. I'm buried in stories and the politics of the season. I could out-debate anyone running for any office anywhere in the USA, I think. That's probably an indication that I've got too much time on my hands, what with Madeleina off at college and not seeing the babies as much as I'd like.
    So that's where I'm at. Not really anywhere, but lots of places at the same time. Tonight I'm gonna treat myself to half a good prime rib steak and a lot of spinach with garlic. Just had fresh carrot juice so I'm already full. Maybe I'll just have the spinach and save the steak.
    Have a great one, everyone. Know that you are important. You're part of the essence of us all. Treat yourselves with live and kindness and then spread that around so that we all benefit from tomorrow's world having a bit less pain and suffering than today's. And think about how to end the strife in the Middle East. That's so horrific I don't even want to get started. But it comes down to people hurting other people over non-existent differences. Open their eyes, Universe, because if they could see, they'd stop in an instant.

I'm about to go off on Donald Trump. Yes, some of you might hate me. I'll live with it.

 So I wrote this on facebook the other day:

I'm getting really tired of Mr. Trump, the inveterate liar, third rate carny con man, and general idiot. I'm tired of his blowing hot air out of his mouth in one direction and then, in the same day, claiming he didn't say what he said. I'm tired of his lies about Hillary Clinton. During her time in the public eye, her positives--and there are lots of them--include working as a US Senator from New York to get help for the First Responders after the World Trade Center horror. And she has continued to work hard for that. She worked very hard for equal pay for equal work for women. She worked for health care for all as First Lady of the US--which is the real reason people don't like her politics, she showed too many lazy dems and dumb repubs up--and that nearly cost her husband his second term and certainly brought 25 years of animus on her. And then, with the Clinton Foundation she's saved countless lives and made countless others livable by getting medicine and water and farming equipment and a host of other necessities to them. Oh, and she and Bill pay about 1/3 of their income into federal income tax: $9.6 million following their best year on the speakers' circuit; $3.4 million last year. Nothing Mr. Trump has done for the public good--including his modest donations to good causes in the distant past--comes close.
Oh, and if you are going to come back with unfact-checked nonsense about the Clinton Foundation--which has an "A" rating from Charity Watch, a non-partisan charity watchdog--please do your research before commenting.

One of the people reading it reacted badly because I insulted his intelligence. I was wrong. He also blasted Hillary Clinton in a long response. Here's what I wrote in my reply:

Dear X: I was strident. I apologize for being rude. BUTTTT, I think you are way, way off base with Hillary. She's spent her adult life working for women, children, underprivilidged people. In the time after she was First Lady, and after she was Secretary of State before becoming a presidential candidate, she was one of the top tier speakers on the speaker circuit. There are tens of thousands of people on various speaker circuits. Some get $300 a talk, some get $1 million plus. She was in the $225,000 range evidently, according to her tax records. Who would pay that? I don't know. Not me, but I don't live in that rare air up there. People who need a tax write off, I suppose. And she gave a lot of that money to the Clinton Foundation[s], which is a monstrously great foundation and from which no one in her family ever took a dime. Now you tell me that Trump is a "maverick populist" and I say, "no dice." He's a criminal through and through. He lies incessantly and often denies his lies on the same day he makes them. He's backed by every white supremecist group in the USA, he's backed by the anti-women, anti-choice, anti-life-after-birth crowd. He's cheered on by those he describes as "uneducated". He accepted a present of a Purple Heart medal from a man who had been wounded in war, held it up and said, "I always wanted one of these." yet did not protest the Vietnam War, simply got out on "bone spurs" and has recently declared that avoiding Venereal Disease was his Vietnam. Along with saying that going to military high school was pretty much the same as being in the military. With that in mind, he says he'd "bomb the shit out of Isis", would "carpet bomb the Middle East," and wants to know why we have nuclear weapons if we can't use them. He claims he was against the Iraq war when he's on video being for it. He claims he didn't want to see Gaddafi removed from his position, when he's on video calling for him to be summarily killed by a "strategical strike". This is a man you want to have nuclear codes? He's a pathological liar, a man who works with the mob in New York and New Jersey, a man who dumps his wives at the drop of a hat and now professes a Christian faith to appeal to the alt.right crazy right-wing Christian voters. This is a man who has never, ever done a decent thing for another human being without touting it endlessly. This is a man who just today patted himself on the back for calling last night's bomb in New York a bomb. He relishes idiocy. He has reporters arrested and then touts free speech. He incites violence and then hides like a baby when someone jumps on his stage. He calls HIllary out for her Secret Service body guards when he not only has Secret Service body guards but his own guards as well. This is a man who has cheated, lied, stolen money from enough people that more than 1,300 have sued him over it. This is a man who has paid cash money to two attorney generals who were considering taking Trump University to court for fraud--and who, after they received his contributions to their campaigns, decided not to. This is a man who says he contributes to political campaigns because he knows that when he calls in a favor his phone calls will be taken by them. This is a guy who claims he'll bring manufacturing jobs back to the US while making everything he sells overseas. This is a man who insisted that Mitt Romney could not be president if he did not release his tax returns and now will not release his own, after swearing on television that he would. This is a man who has a family foundation that buys gifts for himself. This is a man who suggests his opponent might be stopped by "second amendment, people". This is a man who, in the past, has paid no federal income taxes, yet wants more tax breaks for people in his tax bracket. This is a man who refused to rent his apartments to black people--and was caught by the US Department of Justice doing just that and had to settle to avoid a criminal record--who claims he is loved by the African American community. This is a man who decries illegal aliens and then hires them to work for him. This is the man you want for president? I understand, Haydon, that you are an Australian and so might not know all of this. But everyone in the USA knows all of this and much, much more about this man. So no, the choice of a person who ain't perfect but has given her life to helping the public sector, versus this man, this small, small human being whom we all hope someday will do something for someone other than himself...well, that's not a choice. He's a joke who never meant to get here, got here, is stuck being here, is trying desperately to get out of being here, and he should be shown the door. 

Peter Gorman Haydon: Now for Hillary: Never met a war she didn't like, eh? Hmmm....after 9/11, President Bush and insane Dick Cheney went all out on Saddam Hussein as terrorist protectors. Everyone who know anything knew that Hussain, crazy as he was, was keeping the entire Middle East stable. He kept them stable because he was crazy enough to attack anyone and win. But we also knew that he especially hated the Saudis, and if Osama Bin Laden had touched foot on his soil he'd have been vaporized. Nonetheless, Bush/Cheney insisted he was part of the Bin Laden protectorate and chose to go to war there. A vote was taken in the US Senate. It was NOT a vote to go to war. It was a vote authorizing the US President to go to war PROVIDED HE COULD PROVE that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Yes, Hillary voted to give the president, President Bush, that power. But Bush then ignored the glaring truth that Hussein had no weapons of destruction, outed a CIA agent because her husband had proved there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then invaded. That destabilized the Mideast. On top of that, Hussein's Royal Guard and much of his military were disbanded and sent home--without money but with all the weapons fo war they could carry. That's ISiS backbone and Hillary had nothing to do with it .The Spring was going to happen no matter what the US did. So we did out best to outfit the freedom fighters so that they'd have a chance. It has not worked out so well. ISIS has had an odd mesmerizing effect on a lot of disillusioned kids in the US, Europe and the Mideast. I don't think Hillary or anyone could have anticipated the draw of cutting people's heads off on TV would have on the gullible and hopeless. Should we have left Gadaffi in power? Should we have not tried to take down Assad? No. These were monsters, killing their own. As was Hussein, with the Kurds. But we didn't go after Hussein for the Kurd massacres, did we? No. We went after him on the false pretense--the absolute lie--that he harborded terrorists and had weapons of mass destruction.

Hillary's work as Sec of State will be evaluated properly in 20 years. It will ask the question: Did her work to bring Iran to the table prevent them from obtaining and using nuclear weapons or not. That's going to be a huge question for a while. Right now, that looks like some of her best work: Bringing Iran to the table, kicking and screaming. As president, I don't think she'll enter a single war. I only have my belief systems on that. But looking at her 40 year record, from blemishes to cool shit, and her cool shit so far outweighs her blemishes that it's a non-topic. You brought up, Haydon, that things were rigged against Berni. Not true. In all those thousands and thousands of emails there were 7 or 9 that suggested things to undermine Berni, none of which were acted upon. The superdelegates have been in place for years and years: They were not put there to stymie Berni, as he knows. Now I did not want to spend all this time on this issue, Haydon, but you pushed me with your rant. I hope you suffered as much reading this as I did reading your rant.

One more time, Spirit in the real world

Someone wrote to me last night to say they'd been in Peru recently and had had several great experiences with ayahuasca there. She noted that her experiences were different from what she'd read in my book Ayahuasca in My Blood and was curious about why that would be. She also noted that she went into the future with ayahuasca and saw her future grandchildren (her kids are not old enough to have kids, she said) and wondered if it was possible that she had really seen her future grandchildren. So I wrote her back, and for some reason added a story I'm sure you've all heard before--and which probably changes a bit with each telling, though I try to keep the facts lined up truthfully. So here's what I wrote to her:

Dear X: I'm glad you had a wonderful experience in Peru. As you noted, your experiences were different from what you read of mine. I would not expect someone else's experiences to be like my experience. Why? Because I think we're dealing with real spirits, and so what they choose to teach or share with us is individual. If we were just dealing with the chemicals extracted from the plant and they somehow did not have spirit, then I would expect that people would have more similar experiences.

   As to your vision: I have no reason to doubt that you were allowed to see future grandchildren. Or at least POSSIBLE future grandkids. I have often been amazed--truly amazed--at the results of visions in the real world. One of my favorites is this: I had moved to Texas and nothing was working out well in terms of my journalism. Editors who hired me got fired, a couple of magazines hired me then changed formats and dropped me, that sort of thing. So I was with ayahuasca in the jungle at Julio's house and asked what the heck I could do to make things better because the lack of work was taking a toll on my kids. Ayahuasca told me simply, that when I got back to the US I would have the work. I would have to do the work, but so long as I worked at doing the work, I'd have enough work. (This is the short version, so forgive me if you saw this somewhere and it was slightly different.)

    Anyway, I got home and almost immediately a magazine Skunk, out of Canada, asked me to write for them, and I started a monthly column that I still have 12 years later. Then the Fort Worth Weekly changed me from a free lance writer to a staff writer with a weekly income, but allowed me to work from home. And I got some freelance work and so forth.

    BUTTTTT, in the magazine/paper business, you don't always get paid quickly. Sometimes you wait a few months. So I remained broke even with the work I was doing, and the electricity was about to be turned off in my house. I tried to explain to my kids, and especially Madeleina, who was probably 7 or 9 at the time, that it would be like camping in the house with candles for a few days or a week until I got money to get the electricity turned back on.

   She was not having any of it. She refused to believe that the spirits told me I'd have the work if I did the work and that they'd then allow me to not have money and have the electricity shut off. And on the day when the man came to the house to shut off the electricity she had an absolute tantrum in the driveway. I asked the guy if he could go to someone else's house and let me have 15 minutes to calm her down. He said he couldn't but then began looking at some bushes I had. They were ordinary bushes, so I knew he was stalling to let me calm my daughter down.

   While the man pretended to be interested in the bushes, I spoke with Madeleina, and a bright yellow DHL truck raced past out house. In a few minutes it had turned around and pulled into our driveway. The driver asked if I was Peter Gorman and then gave me an envelope. In it was a check for $1000 from a magazine for which I'd done some background work on a story about a year earlier.

   The thing was this: I was not owed a check, and it wasn't a regular newspaper style check. It was a bank check. I showed it to the guy who was going to turn of the electricity and asked him if I could have 10 minutes to go cash it. He let me and I cashed it and paid what I owed and we kept the electric on and Madeleina was all crazy with "I knew it! The spirits couldn't lie! I knew it, dad!" and that sort of thing.

   Well, obviously I was guilty so I went into the house and called the magazine and explained that they'd mistakenly sent me a check and that I'd used some of it but that I'd send the rest back and repay them the remainder when I could. But here's the thing: The people who do the paying at the magazine said they hadn't sent me a check so that there was nothing to send back. I told them it wasn't just a check but a bank check. They said I was crazy: No newspaper or magazine pays by bank check, ever. Which is true. Which was part of the reason the whole thing was so crazy.

    So they said they hadn't paid me. So I called up DHL to see who had given them the envelope to give me. And then it got really crazy, because DHL said they did not deliver to my neighborhood, and that there was no record of anything coming to me. I hung up and thought, well, maybe I was nuts and it was a FedEx truck instead, so I called them. They were very clear that nothing had gone to me via FedEx that day or any time recently.

   So a real bank check got delivered to me that had never been sent to me, by a company that did not do business in my very rural area (at the time). It was spirit all the way. I have always thought that the spirits heard Madeleina and got her message that if they promised me I'd have the work if I did the work then it stood to reason that I should get paid in time to not lose my electricity, which would make it difficult to do the work. So they manifested a truck, a driver, an envelope and a bank check that was legitimate. Now that's spirit for you in the real world.

Gorman's Jungle Juice--for Mosquito Bites to Shingles

Okay: Years and years ago I was taught a basic jungle after-sting remedy. It was good. I worked at it and made it better via 20 years or more of trial and error. The ingredients are largely the same, the proportions very different, but I think that had more to do with cost and availability at the time than anything else.
    Gorman's Jungle Juice After Sting works on eliminating pain from mosquito bites, spider bites, wasp stings, hornet stings, black fly stings. It eliminates the itch, the redness and the bacteria, so that you don't scratch and spread the bacteria. It's very good. No one should go to the jungle or woods without it.  Make me a millionaire, but you'll be happy you did, no kidding. And the people that taught me the medicine get their very healthy cut, so it's a good deal for everyone. (I am not so enthusiastic about its value for fire ant stings. It relieves the pain temporarily, but not permanently. I've used it three or four times after being stung by several hundred fire ants and cannot say it's the be-all, end-all for those. The last time was just this week, mowing heavy lawn and stepping into several fire ant patches I didn't see.)
   Now 14 months ago, a friend of mine bought the rights, for two years, to market this. He's a businessman, so better in his hands to get it to the sports outfitters around the country than mine. But I am allowed to still use it and give it to people to try.
   So here's the thing: A grown up friend of mine, about 60-years-old, has a mom whose 80 and last week got Shingles. Badly. She was suffering horribly and unable to sleep from the pain of her nerve endings going crazy from the autoimmune condition.
   So I was singing for her--okay, you can call it my prayers that I do for people--and it came to me that if the Jungle Juice worked on the nerve endings going nuts from mosquito, wasp, spider bites, etc, it might just work on the nerve endings going crazy from Shingles. I told him that, then gave him most of a quart of the medicine. He started on a small patch of her Shingles yesterday. "She told me it didn't hurt her, so I covered them all this morning," he told me just a few minutes ago. "And now she's sleeping like a baby and my girlfriend and I were able to sneak out of the house to go get dinner. Her Shingles are drying up and just before she went to sleep she said they were at a 3-to-4 pain level, rather than an 8-to-9 pain level. So I think it's working."
   Now that is fantastic news. So here's the deal: Do you know someone with Shingles at the moment? Are they suffering. I can't spend a fortune, but I can give out medicine to five or eight people to see if it works. If it does, I'll find someone to get me to put out more, for free. I'll pay shipping if you ain't got the dough. I never had Shingles, but I had two sisters who did when they were kids and it would be just wrong not to make this available if it works. We don't know yet if it works. We know it's working on ONE person, but that's all we--I--know so far. But since Shingles has no medicine with which to treat it, if this works, fantastic.
   So get in touch if you know someone who is suffering from this. Email me via my website, pgorman.com (the contact is there) and we'll go from there. I'll provide it free as long as I have it.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Adventurers of All Ages!

 

Ladies and Gentlemen! Adventurers of all Ages!

Announcing the 2017 Tour Dates for the Gorman Jungle Jaunts!

January 2017

Saturday, Jan 21, through the morning of Monday, Jan 30

February 2017

Saturday Feb, 4, through the morning of Monday, Feb 13

June 2017

Saturday, June 17, through the morning of Monday, June 26

July 2017

Saturday, July 1, through the morning of Monday, July 10

Looking for a dozen intrepid seekers for each of the Jaunts. Looking for people who want to see and be in deep Amazon jungle; people who want to experience ayahuasca and the Matses’ medicines Sapo and Nu-nu in their natural settings; people who don’t mind dirt under their fingernails if they get it because they were walking in high canopy jungle or in a primordial swamp or collecting wild foods or even making clay pots. I’m looking for people who want to collect the medicines they’ll use and watch their preparation, people who would rather participate than observe and be served. I want a small group of curious people, humans interested in their personal growth, in the spirit world, in the Northwest Amazon as it is today but may not be tomorrow. I want people who see bathing in the beautiful Aucayacu river as an opportunity, not as a poor substitute for a hot shower; people who view the chance to eat a few local magic mushrooms while traveling overnight on a flat-bottomed river boat on the Amazon as a once in a lifetime thrill, and see night canoeing in dugouts while searching for medicine frogs a rare and wonderful opportunity. In other words, I want anyone who sees living as a bit of a risk but one worth taking.

   And if you join, my team—which will outnumber the guests—and the medicines and the jungle and the rivers and I will all work our collective asses off to give you something you’ll hold onto for a very long time. The medicines will astound you, the people will thrill you, the jungle will amaze you. So what are you waiting for? Drop me a line at peterg9@yahoo.com or head over to the pgorman.com website for more info, photos, and an idea of the trip itinerary and costs.

Leftovers Anyone?

So I was cleaning up my fridge to make room for some fresh stuff--just in case anyone in my family stops by, I keep it full and fresh, and Italo did stop by yesterday, and then Chepa this morning--when I realized I was getting up there in left overs. This is what I have in the fridge, all good, nothing spoiled. I think I'm cooking for more than one...
    There was a nice bowl of hot sausage, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and garlic. Good over rice or in an Italian sausage sandwich. Put that in a hero (that's bread), cover with a little tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, put that in the oven till the cheese is done and you're in New York heaven.
    There were two baked chicken legs. Good for eating cold, heated up, chopped up into a salad. Anyway you like 'em
    There were three roasted chicken thighs. Originally meant over couscous with spinach and a salad, they're now good for burritos, the meat cut off and sauteed with a homemade barbeque for a pulled chicken sandwich, or turned into a chicken salad sandwich with scallions, mayo, and celery. Or that same salad stuffed into an avocado half for an Avocado Queen.
    There is one pork chop left from last night, sauteed, then baked, with some good saurkraut.
    There are two pieces of chicken parmesana, both with good fresh mozzarella and a nice tomato sauce. Could be heated up and had for dinner.
    There are two half-ribeye steaks, because I just can't eat 12 ounces of meat at a sitting anymore and I bought two last week. Both are medium rare, topped with onions, and still look like they'd tickle your throat and please your taste buds no end.
    A small bowl of coleslaw, homemade, that I made to go with the first of those two ribeyes.
    So tonight, I'm making shrimp. I've got a pound of 10-15s, so about 14 shrimp. I'm gonna make couscous--pretty instant--with fresh garlic and then make it spanish tasting with achiote and cilantro. The shrimp will be sauteed in garlic and olive oil, with scallions, a diced red pepper, a diced poblano pepper, a diced tomato and a huge handful of spinach. I'll add some Peruvian achiote to that as well and I've got the shrimp shells on the stove--I already seared them blood red--in water with half-an-onion and a Roma tomato to make a bit of juice to keep the couscous moist.
   I'll probably have 5-6 shrimp. Which means that tomorrow I'll be putting 8 fantastic shrimp into a bowl in the fridge to sit alongside everything else in there. If any of it was rotten, I'd toss it. If it was even a littl bit off, I'd put it outside, in the ditch near the road for the birds and any other animals that want it. But when it's all still at the top of its game, I just can't bear to toss it.
   So if anybody is in the neighborhood, stop by for fresh shrimp or a smorgasbord of really good leftovers. Mange!

Feeling good again

I don't know why I was so crazy the other day, why I didn't fit into my own skin, couldn't breathe deeply, couldn't get relief from almost anything, but it seems to have passed. I'm feeling very strong today, feeling good. Just went to the store and forgot to buy hummingbird food so I just made some here--it's just sugar water, so not a problem, but I realized I was snubbing the hummingbirds by being so distracted by myself. Now they'll eat good again.
   I think human interaction and being needed is important to me. Whether it's needed as a dad or a writer or a jungle guide or friend, I get grounded by feeling useful, feeling that there is a spot for me. And I think sometimes I don't feel needed at all. If Madeleina's at school, my stories for the magazines are all caught up, no friends drop by--remember, we usually have a busy house with house guests, but have not had many the last couple of weeks--if Italo doesn't come by and Chepa doesn't stop by for coffee...well, I can go 36 hours without human contact beyond a store teller. And I think that's part of what had me so edgy, and I do mean edgy.
   Anyway, I'm okay now and hope it will last. Thank you all for putting up with my rant of a couple of days ago.

Not liking this feeling at all

Woke up this morning feeling a little bit off. Over the first few hours I was up, from 4 am till 7 am, that "little it off" moved into a shallow breathing, slightly frightened, slightly paranoid state. Now it's noon. I've eaten fruit, had water, been outside, took out garbage, showered, used my Peruvian medicines, and it's still there. I'm not liking this. Might be because I've simply been too alone recently, with Madeleina back at school and some family issues that have sort of occupied everybody else's time and left little time for dinner with me. Might be because I've caught up on all my work and am now faced with either getting back to trying to work on another book or simply being at loose ends. Whatever it is, I don't like it, and it's too hot to mow the lawn right now, though when I get to that I should start feeling better. Dang. I'm not liking this at all. Sorry for complaining, just had to reach out to you all because there are no other humans on my horizon this morning.

This is for you, and I mean, personally...

Okay, this is between you and me. And I’m talking to you. And you and me are in trouble.
There are about 300 million people in the USA who are not infants.
About 160 million of them are retired
That leaves 140 million to do the work.
85 million of those are in school,
Which leaves 55 million to do the work.
Of that there are 35 million employed by the federal government.
Which Leaves 20 million to do the work.
2.8 million of those are in the armed forces, preoccupied with killing terrorists,
Which leave 17.2 million to do the work.
Take from that the 15.8 million people who work for state and city governments.
That leaves 1.4 million to do the work.
On any given day there are 188,000 people in hospitals,
Which leaves 1.212 million to do the work.
Then there are 1, 211, 998 people in prisons and jails on any given day.
Which leaves just 2 people to do the work.
You and me.
And there you are, sitting on your ass, staring at your computer,
Reading jokes.
Nice, Real Nice.

PS: This is copied from someone much smarter and more clever than I am, but it was nearly impossible to resist posting here. And since I'm weak, I gave in to the temptation... PG

Quick thought on an opinion piece I read

Very short but good opinion piece in the Huffington Post today that asks the question of why are news outlets screaming for Hillary Clinton to disassociate herself from the Clinton Foundation--or to shut it down completely--because it looks like it has the potential for a conflict of interest with foreign donations, while the same news outlets are not calling for Donald Trump to disassociate himself from the Trump organization? Very valid. Hillary Clinton--love her or hate her--is simply held to a completely different standard than other people. She makes no money from the A-rated Clinton Foundation, no salary, nothing, and everyone who knows anything acknowledges that the foundation is doing wonderful work in difficult areas, including AIDS, water, and women's rights among other things. And she said she will separate from the foundation if she's elected president. Bill Clinton has chimed in that if Hillary is elected the foundation will not accept any foreign donations while she is president. Bill will also disassociate from the foundation. I'm not sure about Chelsea, whom many people claim makes a huge salary from the foundation but actually., like her parents doesn't make a cent.
The Trump Organization, is strictly a money-maker. And while Donald has railed about the Clinton Foundation taking money from Saudi Arabia (our political ally, by the way), he is not holding himself to task for taking many millions from...yes, Saudi Arabia. And a number of other Middle-Eastern countries. His son Donald, Jr. has said that the Trump Organization also gets a lot of money from the Russians; we know Trump is in deep debt (maybe not for a billionaire but at least to the tune of a few hundred million) to the Chinese, and so forth.
Here's the thing: If the Clintons step away from the Clinton Foundation, the people actually running it will continue to do so and the good work will continue to get done. If Trump does as he said he will and turns the Trump Organization over to his children, he'll still be making money from that Organization and that organization will continue to do business with China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and so forth--with all profits going to Mr. Trump and his family.
I agree with the writer of the op ed piece: It's time for Trump to be held to the same standard as Hillary Clinton.

Nice Phone Call from My Kid

Nice phone call from my oldest, Italo, this morning. It was about 7 AM so I figured it to be Chepa but no, it was Italo. He'd been over yesterday and got my riding mower working after two or three years and then attacked the one section of yard I have not gotten to since the rains stopped--the section over the bridge on the hill by the chicken coop--which, by the way, needs major work to be operational again!!!!
     Anyway, not to be outdone, I had a couple of glasses of wine (a cabernet named 337--not bad at all), then got the push mower going and redid the very front lawn--just done last week, but we've had a couple of night rains so it has been growing fast--and then the section of lawn between the telephone poles and the drainage ditch off the road. That last is a bit of a pain and I decided to get the whole 10' by 150' piece of it done.
   Anyway, before the mowing I started a simple tomato sauce: Lots of garlic in good olive oil, a large, freshly chopped red onion, a good vine-ripened tomato. Once that was done I tossed in a jar of organic tomato sauce (about $2.48, I think it's Bertolli), cracked black pepper and sea salt. I loostened it with organic vegetable broth and put it on low. Near the time I was ready to use it, I put in a good three or four tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese to give it a bite.
   Later, after the lawn mowing and another glass of that 337 Cabernet Sauvignon, I sliced 3 half- chicken breasts in half, so I had six portions of meat, then breaded them and sauteed them and seared them in a bit of that olive oil with garlic.
   I transferred them to a glass baking dish, covered them in the sauce and topped them with fresh mozzarella cheese and threw them in the preheated oven at 350 degrees.
  While they baked I made a good bunch of steamed broccoli florets and then a nice romaine salad with tasty blue cheese I crumbled into bits and served that with my balsamic vinagrette for me and  organic ranch for Italo and his daughter, my granddaughter, Taylor Rain. No starch.
   The meal was definitely tasty. I haven't made chicken parmesan for a few months now--just too hot in the summer for it, right?
  So we ate and watched some Seinfeld, then they left and I washed some dishes, read a bit of news on the net and went to bed.
   I managed to sleep pretty good--thank you, spirits--and got up at 6. Then Italo's call came at 7.
   "Hey pops, you okay?"
   "Sure, buddy, what's up?"
   "I just want to say thanks for that dinner last night. That was fucking delicious!"
   "You're welcome, no sweat."
   "The thing is, I woke up feeling so good because of it. My whole body feels great! Thanks, pops!"
  I think he and Sarah and Taylor eat pretty well at their house. I don't know if they go out of their way to make the broccoli or would add the fresh ingredients to the tomato sauce, or buy an organic tomato sauce or the fresh mozzarella. Most people wouldn't. The same meal would still taste great without that stuff. But with it, and then the salad as well, my kid's body felt so good he had to call me to let me know. And that's cool. The phone call was cool, but even more cool was being reminded that fresh food can do wonders for the human body.
    Thanks for the reminder, buddy.

Not sleeping a whole lot

Well, I'm not sleeping a whole lot lately. The last few years I tend to sleep at my desk or at a table, sitting up, then, when I wake enough to realize I'm sleeping--or close to it--I head for the couch I sleep on. I can grab an hour there, then back to the desk, then back to the couch. In the end I get maybe 2-3 hours of sleeping horizontally and the rest sitting up. Not great for keeping my ankles looking like kankles!
   But the last week, well, I've been getting up at 3:30 or so--last night was 2:37--and cannot go back to sleep at all. I've been making coffee at 4 AM and sometimes that works to focus my mind so that I can grab an extra hour--if I only have half a cup (and I make it half-regular/half-decaf) probably akin to the way add drugs cause you to focus.
  Think is, I don't know why I'm not sleeping. Even if it's half sitting up, I can generally put my head on my arms and go out quickly and pretty much stay sleeping for a couple of hours at a clip.
  And a night like last night, a 2:37 wake up, well that makes for a very long night. Darn it. Once in a while I'll take a shot of cough syrup or the over the counter sleep-eze caps, but I don't like being dependent on those so I keep that to once in a while. Aaarrrrrgggghhhhh! This not sleeping makes for huge bags under my eyes and my brain is not as quick as it should be.
  C'est la vie, but I'm not digging it.

Just come in from lawn mowing

So I've just come in from lawn mowing. I'm drenched. Took a shower this morning, worked, got ready for a ceremony tomorrow--a friend coming over for San Pedro--visited with a friend who came by, went to one of Alexa's 3 soccer games today--she's fast but hesitant; if Italo got six hours with her she'd be great--and then had some wine and went to mow the lawn directly behind the house.
   Now I'm not having fun mowing the lawn this week. I mowed when I returned from Peru in late July; but then Chepa and me and Chepa's babies Sierra and Alexa went to Mexico to get our teeth done (http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/08/24/best-root-to-mexico/) and that became, somehow, a cover story, and then it rained for nine days, and so I had a couple of weeks of no lawn mowing while the grass kept growing.
   So the last few days I've attacked it. I first attacked a back portion, about 60 feet by 90 feet which abuts two small bridges over the "sometimes" creek and involves mowing around a large tree that lightning just knocked over and lots of poison ivy. I dont' think I'm allergic to it but it still is a pain.
   Then three days ago I attacked the beautiful large front lawn: 160 feet by 40 feet with end tables of 20 by 30 and 50 by 50. By the time I got done with that--I'm using a push mower with front wheels that turn on their own--I was pooped.
   Then two days ago I attacked the very front lawn, not large, maybe  50 by 50 with a 12 by 30 side bit and everything was looking good.
   Today I hit the lawn behind the house. That's 80 by 40. It's only 3,200 square feet but since that's where the gray water from our kitchen sink and laundry go, it grows fast. I mean that sucker, on the half I did today, probably averaged 15 inches high, which is way too high for a push mower. And after the nine days of rain, even though we've had sun the last couple/few days, was freaking wet. So I attacked it and stepped into two fire ant colonies I didn't see. I've got about 500 bites on my ankles, calves and thighs. I've poured Gorman's Jungle Juice After Sting all over them, so the pain is subsiding a great deal, but I didn't have my magic juice while working so just dealt with it. Man, those little bums can lay a sting on you. And now I've got to rake the part I mowed because there's clumps of cut grass everywhere that will burn the grass' roots if they're not taken up.
  So I'm taking this minute to tell you that. I'm soaked in sweat, I'm nearly eaten alive, but I beat the worst of it. HA! Ain't life grand? You don't need to look far to find a cause. Cause there's always something to do right near where you are.

Oy, vey! If I wasn't already near death, I'd be having a heart attack!

So a great friend paid me some funds he'd borrowed. Man, it was great to have them. Thanks. And then either the same day he said he was paying me back or maybe the next day, my house air conditioning unit went out. Now I'm from New York and never had AC in my life. But we always had plenty of fans. And we never had Texas' summer heat where it routinely hits 105 and often feels hotter than that. So to have the AC go out here, well, it makes it hard to get a good night's sleep, hard to focus on my work, hard to keep smiling.
    But I got this extra money, right? And how much could repairing a 3 1/2 ton AC unit be?
    Even better, I had a 10-year parts warranty on the thing and it's only seven years since I bought it. Hooray!
    Except that the guy changing the thing out said that when a compressor goes bad, the gas in it goes bad as well, so I need new freon, about 8 1/2 pounds of it at the good price of $62.50 a pound.
   And the labor is not included.
   Price tag: $1100 and change.
   Damnit.
   If I wasn't already almost dead I'd be having a heart attack!
   I'm not really near dead. I'm actually doing well. My lawn looks great. Went to Mexico with Chepa and her girls, Sierra and Alexa and got dental work done last week. Madeleina passed her driving test and now has a license--if only I can get the new (old) 2003 Ford Mustang I got for her registered. Seems previous owner can't find the title. Don't worry, there are bonded titles and I'm working on one, which will allow me to circumvent not having a title.
   And I got the funds, which was great.
  It's just that $1100 AC fix that irks me. Although I must say, it was nice of the Universe to keep the thing running until the check was in the mail. That is a good thing, eh?
   So I guess that makes everything okay.
   Hope you all are having wonderful days too, only without the repairs needeed!!!!!

Gonna rail about something here

Okay, so I'm back from Peru, back from 3 days in Mexico to get dental work done for me, Chepa, Sierra and Alexa--good work, inexpensive, fast, with lots of good food and a couple of beers tossed in as a bonus in Nuevo Progresso--back from north Texas where Madeleina and I had to go to do some interviews and get some photos for an upcoming cover story. I'm back and I'm exhausted.
   So today there's a new report that just came out in the September issue of the Obstetrics and Gynecology that shows that pregnancy related deaths in Texas have doubled since 2011, the same year that Texas cut 66 percent of its budget for family planning funds, which resulted in 82 family planning centers, including a lot of Planned Parenthood centers, to shut down.
   Did you get that? The pro-life crowd tried to eliminate abortion centers and the collateral damage was that women had available pregnancy services dramatically cut, causing deaths to mothers during both pregnancy and childbirth to shoot up more than 50 percent. And it shot up the first year those cuts were made, from 72 deaths during pregnancy and childbirth in 2010 to 148 in 2012, the year the cuts were felt.
   The pro-life crowd? The same crowd that crowed loud and long about Obamacare Death Panels--which only existed when insurance companies were allowed to cut people off from care prior to Obamacare--screamed long and loud about needing to help poor women bring their fetuses to term by cutting the funding for pregnancy care, which has killed a lot of them.
   Good job if what you really meant was "we hate poor people and people of color and we want to see them die."
   I could go on, but I'd probably have a heart attack.

A little something about illegal workers

I just read something about illegals that made my blood boil. It was in the comment section of the Miami-Herald and the writer was disparaging illegal workers. His comment was basically that illegal workers pay sales tax and that was it. I don't generally comment on the Miami-Herald site but had to. The fellow obviously has no idea of how illegal laborers work here in the US.
Typically, an illegal worker gets hold of a quality copy of a real social security card, and with that can build the rest of his/her paperwork: Driver's license, bank cards, and so forth. But that person will then pay federal, state, and local taxes; they'll also pay into social security and medicare. But they will not be able to get a refund from the feds or state or utilize social security or medicare because the initial social security card is not their own. So the illegal workers are pouring billions and billions into federal, state, local taxes, social security and medicare and not getting anything in return for that. It's just gone. On top of that they pay gasoline taxes like we all do whenever we buy gas for our cars, they pay sales taxes, car registration and inspection fees and so forth. Oh, and they buy houses and cars and televisions and all the stuff the rest of us buy, keeping the economy going.
Additionally, a huge percentage of the illegal worker population take jobs that nobody else will do: roofing, road construction (not the cushy supervisor jobs, the ones working with the hot tar during Texas summers), motel and hotel cleaning, gardening, fruit and vegetable picking, chicken and fish farm work. Pretty tough and wretched jobs. So they're really a vital cog in how we live.
Why do they take the awful jobs and risk deportation and jail? For some it's because they imagine that their children will fare better for their hard work in a land with more opportunity than much of Mexico and Central America. For others it's a way to earn US dollars to send back home so that their families can start a business there. For still others it's a way to escape the violence of the drug wars raging in much of Mexico and Central America (which you already know are US-fueled because we love our drugs here).
In my book the illegal workers are to be celebrated not denigrated.