meet Stanley Park & Jack White

I was twenty feet from the door to exit international customs when I handed my declaration card to the cute woman of Indian descent. My warm smile waned though as my eyes felt her coldness pierce me, and the interrogation started.
"Why are you coming here for just one day?"
She is unsatisfied with my response. I sense she feels as though I'm lying to her. This feeling is justified with the next round of questions.
"All you have is your backpack?" "What if I bring over the dogs and other agents? " Will they find marijuana?"
I hate cops. Add customs agents now to that list.
"When was the last time you did drugs?"
Bitch, are you kidding me? I felt completely stereo-typed, being judged on my appearance and reason for being there alone. It was horrible, but I kept my composure and started to slide my backpack off my shoulders for her to search. I figured the white gloves would come next.....
"Put your pack on. You can go..."
The air outside was fresh and inviting in Vancouver B.C., but the sour taste in my mouth would take time to dissipate.

*****

As I start walking the city, I find this poem etched in glass outside a restaurant :

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the ground! I shall walk softly there,

and learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a lonely stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where you go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What fall away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

-Theodore Roethke

I've never been to city that has so many of their building all in glass. With the beautiful views from every direction though, you can see why. Wandering aimlessly around, I find a bike shop renting by the hour. The exercise is just what I need to clear my head and put me in a better mood. Stanley Park has vistas and trails that smooth my temperament.

I encircle the park, then head to the dirt trails of the interior. One can easily forget you are in a metropolis. Signs of coyote warning hikers and bikers alike, but all I see are more of Canada's strange black squirrels.

Some time later, I emerge to find a hidden lake. I rest on a park bench, soaking up the afternoon sun. Ducks of various types and a curious goose keep me company.
Exhausted, I head to get some rest before the show later in the evening.

*****

The Queen Elizabeth Theatre is the perfect venue to see Jack White. Ever since I heard the White Stripes in 2003, driving through the lonely and barren Northern Arizona landscape, the music has been a constant staple. When they broke up last year, I thought the opportunity to see them was lost. But with his new solo album came a tour, and although it was in another country and it broke the piggy bank to go, the night was completely worth it. Jack wailed and shredded guitar riffs with ease. His band consisted of six women, all holding their own degree of sexiness and musical genius. Amazing.

Alcatraz Island

The shackles around his ankles feel like a ship's anchor, ready to plunge down into hell's depths and wash away the madness. Slowly stepping off the boat, the salty air reminds him of home. The man's new home, a small cell on the unforgiving rock.

The guards give you a look, only one look, but you know it's interpretation. Obey or be punished. The sound of metal grating against metal as the door closes in, and shuts out all you once knew. Goodbye world. Just a number now.

Seconds turn to minutes, hours to days, weeks lend to his madness in this solitary routine. The flowers grow in macabre forms.

Visitation room, a cruel joke. He sits in the chair, eyes looking into the dirty window at family and friends that will not see him. He can barely see himself.

Looking out onto the bay, the city, life bustling, unknowingly torturing the souls within these walls, these chains. Perhaps an apt punishment for the crimes committed, perhaps one of man's most cruel devices.

He looks onto the buildings here now that make up the landscape, the images that now fill his mind, his time. Will he ever see beauty again, or is what is before him now all that can be?

Retiring to bed, washing his hands after using the toilet, the smell of C block choking his nostrils, the words circle his head as he lays down for dark dreams....

“With this work I hope to bring that ideal one small step nearer, but no one realizes so well as I how far short of my goal I have fallen. The road stretches into the dim future, far beyond the possible accomplishments of any single lifetime, but if in this I have been able to point the direction and inspire others to carry on from the point where I have left off, I shall consider my efforts worthwhile.”

The Wall

My first act of teenage rebellion resulted from listening the the song "Another brick in the wall", being played on the radio, my best friend and I shouting about how we weren't going to let teachers rule our lives.

I had no concept of the entire Pink Floyd album at that time. I few years later, at the still tender age of seventeen, I saw the movie based on the epic rock album, and started to grasp Roger Water's concept of isolation and loneliness.

During the 1990's I was as lost as the album's main character, Pink. The songs comforted me like a child's favourite blanket.
The mark of a truly great album is the test of time. It's been over twenty five years since "The Wall" was released, and it sounds as new today as when it first was released.

Like myself, Roger Water's himself has changed. he now relates his masterpiece as an anti-war message. The shows message on this topic is clear throughout the Broadway-esque live performance.

We are reminded of the slippery slope we have when our government gets too much power, like the murder in London of Brazilian man Jean Charles de Menezes , who was shot seven times in the head by the London Metropolitan police after being mistakenly identified as someone associated with the 1995 bombings that occurred there.

As I watch the show in San Francisco's AT & T park, the wall being created before my eyes and the images burned into my brain, I understand the message delivered.

in The Swell

I first heard "licensed to ill" when I was around 14, listening to it on my friend's walkman in the back of a van heading to the mountains to ski. The memorable times of youth.

When I heard on the radio that one of the co-founders of the Beastie Boys, Adam Youch (aka "MCA"), passed away on May 4th, I wanted to give tribute to this incredible artist.

The San Rafael Swell worked just fine for this purpose.

Climbing stone outcrops onto the edge of existence, looking for memories. I find the past in this land, the VW bus and a girl named Angie. Family trips when sis was still with us. No cares and the world ahead me.

Tired after hiking through rock and sand with the spring sun baking my skin, I go on the search for a refuge from the heat and night winds. The hidden splendor of Hondo's Arch will work.

I set up camp, cook a meal by the fire, then retire to the tent. The night is brilliantly clear, a full super moon shines down, illuminating cold earth in it's light.
A settlement of horse traders sing and play guitar. John Denver pierces the darkness. I close my eyes look forward to comforting dreams instead of stress and nightmares.

The morning brings an exploration of abandoned uranium mines and shafts. Eerie and hauntingly beautiful. Mixed in between are remnants of the past.

At the end of the journey was no great epiphany waiting for me. Only the faint words out of the lips of wise man, saying....

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around, you could miss it."

in my hometown

I'm not sure the number of shows one needs to attend before earning the status of  'Groupie', but May 2nd marked my second Black Keys show of the year, and my third all time.

This was extra special to me though since it was in my hometown, and my fellow Utahns made me proud.

The Keys played an entirely different set list from the previous show in Philly, mixing in more old classic tracks, but with the same amazing high energy. The crowd was phenomenal from start to finish. It made this lonely boy proud. Long live rock and roll.

Crisscrossing country roads of Cornhusker land

It had been four years since I'd last stepped on Nebraska soil. Upon my return to America's heartland last week, I looked with new eyes at the acre after acre of land that many a generation of a farmer's sweat and back breaking work ethic that struggles daily to keep our country fed.

Mixed with the simple farmland beauty though are scattered signs preaching one's religious views, mostly pro life messages about when our existence begins. I find them unsettling, but realize that freedom of speech must encompass all people, and their points of view. Does the freedom of expression have a boundary?
I switch mind gears and think about the corn and soybean that is grown and stored in abundance out here....

I wonder if the farmer has a conscience about this product, being used in the manufacturing of unhealthy high fructose corn syrup that is ruining our health. I wonder if they feel bad as they use this product as feed for cattle, instead of natural grass.
The smell of the feed lots make me choke on the air, like an emphysema patient puffing a last cigarette. I consider vegetarianism again with real fervor.

I wonder if they are to blame at all, or if they are just filling a need, satisfying a consumer....
I have plenty of time to ponder these thoughts as I travel hour after endless hour on dusty dirty roads.

Stacks of rolled hay in a field of green bring joy to this heart.
Laying by a river bank watching tadpoles jump in the sparkles of shimmering sun on the water.
Sitting on an old swing, pretending my imaginary friend is on the other end,lifting me to the endless sky.
Up. Down.Up. Down.
A solitary cow grazing and drinking without a care.

Not a bad way to spend your time, crisscrossing rural country roads.

Build.Create.Kenya.

I am excited to tell you about a new organization that I am a part of called Build.Create.Kenya., a non profit humanitarian and education-improvement organization based in Kenya, helping and aiding in the progress of the education of children and basic life needs of East Africa.

I am telling you about them because it is something that myself and three other people are starting. A new adventure and we need to get the word out. To help with that, I had a little yard sale fundraiser over the weekend.

My family gathered together our collective used and donated items to raise money for the new non profit. Signs were posted throughout the valley, ads placed on the inter webs, my niece handed out flyer's at her elementary school, and set up a lemonade and treat stand to help. All for the children of Kenya.

We ended up raising almost six hundreds dollars, and several people inquired about the organization and expeditions that we hope to lead in 2013. It was all very exciting and successful. If you would like to help out with a donation or to learn more about our organization, please check us out on Facebook, and follow our website ( which will be operational very soon)

Thank you.

Trichechus inunguis

One of only four species in the world, this manatee's habitat ( trichechus inunguis) is restricted to the Amazonian basin. In the small, cutoff town of Iquitos, Peru lies the non profit, nongovernmental, fully run by volunteers organization, the Amazonian Manatee Rescue Center.

Walking into the rescue center you can feel and see the need for funding. You can also sense the care and dedication of the people working to help save this beautiful endangered species. We saw babies in small tanks, trying to just survive, moving slowly as they were recuperating from the trauma they endured out in the wild.

There is hope though, as the volunteers have successfully raised small abandoned manatee babies from the wild after their parents were murdered to grow into young, healthy manatee's here at the center. They let us feed these younglings, and you truly get the sense of their playfulness and wonder.

I don't know what it is about these creatures that I love, but putting my hand to their skin, having their whiskers tickle my bare arm whilst they suckle the bottle of milk that I was feeding them was a moment of connectness with nature that I'll never forget.

Won't you please Save the Manatee?

The Phoenix Foundation

Frackity Frack, there is no looking back...


He feels the heavy weight of despair upon slumped shoulders. Gravity is slowly winning everyday. He realizes it isn't so much the actual work he minds, but the triviality of the daily process.

Get it together old man, only for a little while longer. 


The constant gnawing to do something greater than yourself, see life with different eyes, step into the unknown, is a powerful force.

not to be ignored.

He will stave off the loneliness by remembering simple things. He will pace himself so that his heart does not break or wear down from the ticking of time.

The social awkwardness of the silent is sometimes their hidden genius.

Little Sahara

The day comes when the fulcrum of life starts tipping, slowly, toward days gone by being more than days ahead. The awareness of the limits of time, as well as the nagging suspicion that the Mayans were right, has me moving like a shark. Get busy moving or get busy dying.

With Spring temperatures soaring this past week, the call of the wild stirs within me. Dusting the winter off the old tent, I head to the hills for the first camping trip of the year.

I haven't been back to the sand dunes since I was a teenager. I remember playing "steal the flag" with my friends until late into the night, cooking hot dogs on sticks and eating mounds of smores.

Twenty five years later, and the sand dunes remain just as omnipotent. The winds have carved new faces into the slowly moving hills. With book in hand and thoughts ready to be put down on paper, I marvel on a hilltop as the sun glides slowly to the other side of the world.

The crows watch the sun set in silence, the breeze lightly whistles through the sandy canyons. On my back, I cloud bust images in the sky.
Night comes, and as the half full moon shines iridescent light on the landscape, I hike in the black sand and white brush, jumping in my own skin at the silhouette of dead trees appearing like zombies in a post apocalyptic world.

Gathering deadwood and fallen branches, I start a small fire, cook a simple meal, then dream and dance in the glowing firelight. Closing my eyes to the millions of holes to heaven illuminating the sky, the chill in the air perfectly balances my own body heat.

As the earth turns to visit those around this world, I lay in peace. I awake to early darkness and rise to watch the sun return to bathe the world once again with its rays of warmth.