Cary On

Today I'm riding down to Eugene OR to visit a friend of mine, coming back Sunday morning, This'll be the longest single leg I've taken Danger Roja on. According to Google maps its 283 miles, one way. I think the North Cascades loop we did last summer may have been farther then that, but it was broken into two days. It's probably gonna rain on me all the way down and all the way back, but it'll be good "mind clearing" time.

Anyway, I recently bought a new (to me) album from iTunes, it's called "Deja Vu" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Ever heard of it? Great album. I'll leave you with a quote from "Cary On":

The sky is clearing, and the night has gone out
The sun, he come, and the world is all full of light
Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice but to cary on
Cary on, love is coming, love is coming to us all

Traffic Camera

Recently I got a ticket from one of those traffic cameras. Isn't that some bull shit? Those things aught to be outlawed. I think it was for not coming to a complete stop at a red light. $124 bucks, dude. Seriously, those cameras are nerdy. I think we should find out who is responsible for their invention, and gut them.

Anyway's, this weather is certainly helping my mood. I was in a really shitty mood over the last week or so. The sunshine really helps. And the dry pavement. I swear, after weeks of riding in the rain, my tires feel like they are GLUED to the pavement when it's dry. This is when peg scraping takes place.

And I had a very nice visit with a good friend yesterday, that was needed.

So remember how I mentioned that I call into that podcast from time to time? Do you remember that blog post? Remember it? How I talked about that one show? The Distorted View Show? Remember? Well, I've been hearing my voice mail calls on a fairly regularly basis, about every third episode on average, even though I'm not calling in every day. But when I think of something, I call. One thing I didn't mention in that last posting about this show is what I use as my nick name, or my "handle" if you will. It requires a little explination before I just say it right to your face.

Like I mentioned, the show is offensive. The day after I posted that posting (there's gotta be another way to say that...) the host of that show used words that our society has deemed "unfit" to utter, several, several times within the first few minutes. I KNOW it's very disrespectful, but in some way, it makes you realize that words are simply letters in a row. It is when we string then together and develop meaning out of these strings when things  get complicated. So, as I see it, its more about the intent of the communicator, then the words themselves (even if the word is "nigger"). In the case of this show, the intent is to be funny and to shock. One (of many, many) examples of this is that he refers to senior citizens (especially the ones on mobility scooters that can't work the ATM kiosk at the grocery store, or, even worse, write a check) as "near-deads". I know, its disrespectful. Lets just move past that.

Cause it's about to get a little more "real" in here. I know to some, this isn't going to be very funny, and I wasn't going to blog about it until I heard my most recent voicemail call, and I can't help myself. So, that being said, my "handle" when I call in is "CJ The 33 year-old near-dead from Seattle", you know, cause I'm kinda like a near dead. Kinda? CJ means "cancer Josh" and was a nick name that two completely separate groups friends gave me, so I went with it :)

When the host plugged my blog, a guy who calls in on a regular basis left a comment for me on my blog (you may have seen it and thought "what the fuck did that guy just call Josh?"), he goes by "The Puerto Rican Fat Man". He requested my address so he could send me some Puerto Rican candy, cause if you gotta go out, you might as well be eating sweets (according to him). Well, the package arrived a couple weeks ago, and by the time I actually saw it, I was..., well I was drowning my sorrows in alcohol with a couple friends (hey, sometimes you gotta blow off some steam). I called into the show and left a very drunken voice mail message I only heard the other day. It cracked me the fuck up :)

So, the Puerto Rican Fat Man wrote a short letter that he included with this box of candy. I wanted to post it on here, but thought it would require too much offensive explanations. But at this point I think we can all agree that I am fist deep in offensive explications, so what's one more? He uses the term "boy pussy". It's a term from some audio clip the host of the Distorted View Show played once, and has been repeated on the show to the point where it's like a little inside joke for show listeners. "Boy pussy" would be a term a homosexual man might use to describe his partners, well, do I really need to go into that much detail? I think we all get it, right? The context the Puerto Rican Fat Man uses it ended up confusing me, but I'm going to post his letter, word for word:

"Dear 33 near dead from Seattle. Here is the Puerto Rican candy I promised. I'm sorry it took so long to send it. I was waiting for my heterosexual man pal Mr. Boy Pussy Jones to send an ebay package. Didn't want to go the post office twice. It's not that it's far away, the problem is the chilli's in the food court, I always end up eating there, and well you know, I'm fat.

"P.S. If you feel the need to return the favor, DON'T, the reason I'm fat is that I eat too much candy to begin with.

"P.S.S. If you are making a trip to 'places I want to see before I die', don't add Puerto Rico to the list. Unless it's a stop over on a cruise. Then you'll be here the least amount of time possible.

"Love always, Puerto Rican Fat Man and Boy Pussy Jones"

If that doesn't make you at least smile, then you are a cold, cold human.

The Thing Stays Dirty

Yesterday I actually felt the suns warmth on my skin. I stepped out of a shadow and felt the sun's actual warm radiation. It felt very, very good. I'm even starting to see tree blossoms around Seattle. Spring time is just around the corner.

Also, I washed my bike for the first time ever yesterday. I've had the thing 16 months (and 24,000 miles. I love bragging about my milage :)) and have never polished a single piece of chrome on the thing. This time I actually borrowed a hose from the building manager and used real soap and water. Then real chrome polish. The bike has been washed, when it goes in for a tune-up, they wash it if it's sunny out. I've had plenty of tune-ups on cloudy days though, and the thing stays dirty. I'd say it's been washed 3 or 4 times in it's life. It looks pretty good now though. Perhaps I'll start making this a habit... 

This One is Too Long

It seems like I'm developing a strange relationship with this blog. I might be the only person who notices this is happening, though I've discussed it with a few friends who would probably prefer I stop talking about it all the fucking time.

I'm gonna start cussing more in this blog too, so I hope you can fucking handle it. Someone once told me (a PHD in political science, not that it matters) that profanity is the mascot for the bush-league of the simple minded (my words). He specifically condemned Quentin Tarantino for his excessive use of profanity. I completely fucking disagree. profanity adds color. It forms a statement into what you really mean instead of a stiff approximation. Profanity is trenchant, it's very difficult to be such without it.

Back to this blog. I mentioned a couple posts ago, when I was feeling a bit jaded, that having cancer gives me a strict compulsion toward being extremely candid with people (it also gives me a strict compulsion to kiss pretty girls when I see them. Which I have done). There certainly is a time to be blunt and a time not to be, and more and more I'm having a hard time telling where that line is. I want to be so candid in these writings, but I KNOW I will be hurting feelings, being off-putting, alienating, divisive, etc, etc, etc.

I feel like my head is exploding.

I hate being in this situation. I've said it a million times. I can't say it enough. I hate it. I am truly beset on all sides with darkness and death. I'm sorry for being so BLUNT but it's just what I'm dealing with. I'm sure everyone has heard me rail against complaining and complainers, yet here I am. I'm sorry to my siblings and parents, it must be very painful to read things like this. Why do I do this?

Perhaps I'm just confused.

I want to paraphrase a Mark Twain quote I know I must have put in here somewhere. I'm not going to look it up, but here's the gist:

I'm not afraid of death. I was dead for millions of years before my birth, yet I have experienced more pain, sorrow, anguish, misery in my 33 years then in the whole combined millennia before my birth, and it is with anticipation that I await returning to that restful place of pure non existence.

(this doesn't mean I WANT to die, but it's just a unique way of looking at something so soaked in sorrow)

Why am I writing this? I have no idea.

There are so many layers to this. I'm not going to use an onion analogy, don't worry. I cannot comprehend the complexities involved with all my bullshit, yet I fall asleep amidst them and wake up with them in my face. Alone.

I know I have an army of supporters behind me. I know this. I know there are probably more then I realize. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and intentionally hallucinate that every person in every "Moose Lodge" all across this great, great country thinks about me all the time. They spend meetings (do they have meetings) discussing me and my cancer. Manute Bol is in the Moos Lodge (or was) so don't be so quick to clown those motherfuckers.

I should stop typing right this instant, but I'm going to keep going. I'm really tempted to highlight this whole thing and delete it, which, when you think about it, is a ridiculous thing to actually type out. Don't I have anything better to do with my time then type out meaningless sentences? I don't even type that fast, though I certainly type faster then I did before. (Yes, I just ended that sentence with a preposition, and if you don't like it, you may eat shit).

Fuck, I'm rambling.

I feel like I'm beating around a subject I want to discuss, but I don't want to outrightly bring it up. Do you ever do this? It's like diet, low-cal manipulative behavior. The problem is I have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about. I don't know what I'm eluding to. Something though...

This blog post is getting pretty long. I wonder if they have a limit on how long these fuckers can be. I'm going to keep going and shame myself further. Are you ready for more Joshua embarrassment? (Seriously, I'm not that embarrassed. Ok maybe a little...)

I've discovered I can't hold a relationship together. I won't go into detail, but being in a committed relationship while going through everything is a near impossibility. However, I've been realizing that I greatly miss being touched. I know I hug friends when I see them and stuff, and I'm not talking about completely sexual touch, but it's not something I would necessarily have my mother provide. Spooning. Stuff like that. I swear, I'm about to buy a body pillow or something. I'm trying to find some work-arounds.

Just look at all this complaining I've been doing. I can already see the comments telling me I deserve to complain. I don't.

Ok, seriously. I'm fucking done. I can't believe I'm going to hit "PUBLISH POST" on this piece of shit.

The Benifits

1. Insurance companies approve you for anything, no matter what. I even have out-of-network providers. It seems that, for insurance companies, the magic word is "terminal". It turns all answers into "yes". 


2. You get every exception. 


3. Ladies at work feed you cookies. 


4. Ladies at work send you on extremely extravagant vacations. 


5. Everyone thinks your jokes are the funniest. 


6. You get to fall asleep in meetings and everyone "understands" (don't think for a second I don't take full advantage of this). 


7. You get to act erratic and blame it on your treatments. 


8. People give you room/leeway. 


9. People think your advice is worth more than it really is. 


10. You can buy (and smoke) marijuana legally. (By the way, some know, some don't: I am a medical marijuana patient. A sub-benefit to that is that you get the choicest shit there is. If it weren't for that I'd weigh much, much less). 


11. You have the power to ruin someone's day (this isn't always fun, but sometimes it is...). 


12. It illuminates what is important in life (which is very cliche, but true none-the-less). 


13. You realize how beautiful driving across the 520 bridge really is. 


And many, many more. 

Untitled.

Lately it seems like everything is a symbolic representation of something else. Nothing retains its definition. Meaning itself has become mailable, it seems. Everything means something else. It's almost as if my brain is translating every quanta of stimuli into a different language that uses the same words and symbols, but operates more pointedly like allegorical pictograms. I feel like I've left my home behind so long ago I can no longer remember what my front yard used to look like. I can't remember what my daily routine used to be. I can't remember not having a schedule filled with doctor visits. 

I'm feeling the undeniable compulsion to be blunt and honest when I talk to people. Even in ways that are destructive to relationships. Under normal circumstances there's a certain amount of sugar coating one should apply to things said. My sugar coating machinery is absent (or broken). Almost like I'm anxious to tell people things I've thought about them for a long time. For instance, telling a female friend that I'm in love with her (friendship over), or telling a co worker I hate him ("friendship" over), stuff like that. It's perfectly reasonable to simply not say these things, but I feel like I've developed some form of touretts syndrome where I can't help myself.

 

I'm so fucking tired of having cancer and dealing with all the fucking bullshit. PLEASE don't comment on this and tell me to keep my head up, theres brighter times ahead and stuff. And for fuck's sake PLEASE don't feel sorry for me. I sound like an unappreciative asshole, but I just can't hear it. I don't even want to hear stories about cancer survivors. This is getting so very, very fucking old. And I haven't even begun the difficult part.

 

I hate this, and feel ready to be done. Though I know I'm not done. Much more misery on the very close horizon.

 

Believe it or not, there's some good aspects to having terminal metastic cancer, like (I can't think of anything, but there's some stuff that's good I'm sure).

 

I have to blog about something, this is the only thing in my brain these days.

Magnetism

Well, tonight is the night I have the extraordinary honor of performing with "Hotels" at the Columbia City Theater at their CD release show. I'll be wearing the coolest western suit anyone has ever seen. If you enter the venue and feel drawn by pure sexual magnetism in a certain direction (male or female), you will find me.

Show starts at 9 if anyone's interested in checking it out!

Options

Today I did something that should earn me an honorary Hells Angles patch. I did something more treacherous then almost any biker who has ever rode on two wheels. If you have motherly instincts, or feel motherly about me specifically, now would be a good time to stop reading. 

My work shift starts at 5:30. Snow was in the forecast, but I anticipated it being mostly rain, and disappearing fast. I was, in all respects, wrong. The lesson here is to check the weather forecast for Seattle AND for Everett. Lesson learned. 

So anyway, by 7:30 or so, it starts snowing in Everett. Hard. Driving snow. We have bay-doors that roll up and down with a reasonable amount of haste, and still the ground inside the warehouse was white inside these openings. It was coming down, cut the comedy. 

So I'm left with a few options:

1. I could leave with my co-worker Steve who lives in West Seattle. He'd be happy to do that for me, and has said so on many occasions. This option leaves my bike in the parking lot. Steve would swing by tomorrow morning and pick me up for work, and the hope would be that the snow would melt and I'd be able to ride the bike home. One of the dilemmas with this option is that I've got a psychologist appoinement (have I mentioed anything about my psychologist? She rox!) tomorrow afternoon that I'd need to leave work early for, and if there's still snow, that would require me to either make Steve leave early in order to get me to that appointment (which isn't impossible, but I hate imposing), or skip the appointment (which I really didn't want to do). 

2. I could stay at work with the expectation that the snow storm would evolve into rain and everything would be safe by 2:00 when my shift ends, and I could just ride home like a usual wet day. At my lunch break I spoke with a FedEx driver who had just pulled in, he said the Mukilteo Speedway was pretty white, but I5 was mostly wet. It seemed, by talking to some folks, that the storm started in the north end and was moving south. Option 2 left the possibility of a safe exit from Eerett, but a potentially dangerous ascent up the Seattle hills once I got off the freeway. 

3. I could leave on the spot, ride very (very) slowly to the freeway, then I'd be home free. This is what I decided to do.

I geared up and headed out to the bike, which, by this time, had about (no exaggeration) six inches of snow on it. I brushed off the gauges, mirrors, seat, etc., and fired it up. Very (very) slowly, I inched out of my parking space and out of the parking lot. It. Was. SLICK. If I was smart about it, I'd have shoved a bag of Kingsford BBQ Bag Single Use Charcoal Briquets (http://www.kingsford.com/products/details/kingsford-bbq-bag/) up my ass. I'd be shitting diamonds. 

I drug my feet in the corse of driving very (very) slowly. This posture was how I got onto I5, and then some.  There's about a couple miles on highway 526 (I think? It's the 'Boeing hi-way') before I5 that I had to "ski" through. The ride was rife with occurrences of the back end sliding out from under me, trying to put my foot down, but finding nothing but slush and ice. I don't know how I did it, but I kept the bike up right.

About 4 or 5 exits down I5, I was able to pick up my feet and shift into higher gears. The next thing I know, it's sunny, dry and I'm doing 80 weaving between eighteen-wheelers (yes, literally). 

I should be a Hell's Angel, or a Bandito. If anyone has any connections, hook me the fuck up. 

Hallelujah?

Can you even imagine the implications involved if it were to actually rain men? I mean, the swath of devastation from such an event would undoubtedly be directly correlated to the intensity of the down pour, as well as the length of the storm. Taking the popular song "It's Raining Men" as our reference, the skys darken and thunder is heard approaching. This leads me to believe this scenario is going to be catastrophic. The streets are going to be waist deep in flesh and gore. Cars are going to be smashed flat, not to mention the devastation in the housing sector. Thousands and thousands of full grown men (tall, dark and hansom, as the song describes) falling from thousands of feet, reaching terminal velocity, just to slam into the ground. The author states that she (presumably "she"?) is going to get totally soaking wet. With blood, one might assume. Can you imagine the clean-up project? Bulldozers and land fills are probably going to be in the works, but I'd bet we'd have to bring in natural scavengers to clean up some of the carnage. Releasing thousands of vultures and hyenas and other such creatures could get rid of at least some of the meat. Towns would have to be completely evacuated. The stench would be absolutely unbearable.

The Evil Cowboy

So, I mentioned in a previous post that I was invited to play bass for my friend's band "Hotels" CD release party. I didn't mention that the show will be following a specific theme (James Bond casino in outer space) and all the performers need to be in some form of character. Even though I am only going to be playing one song (the first song) I still need to be in character. My friend Blake who is the brains and brawn behind Hotels wasn't sure what sort of character I'd be playing, so Wednesday we went out to a vintage clothing shop owned by a friend of my friend Shannon. This shop exists in an out-building behind the woman's house and is simply rife with possibility. The woman who owns this shop (Melissa) is really plugged into the vintage clothing "scene" of Seattle. The shop has no advertising, but she is the main contact for all of Seattle's burlesque dancers (there are many), and works with theater groups for their costuming needs.

When we arrived at the shop, it took Blake nearly ten minutes to come up with an outfit for himself. As you might expect, he's wearing a cream colored tux jacket, black tux pants, etc... He looks very James Bond-ish, which is the point. We decided I was going to be the "Evil Texas oil billionaire" since those guys are prevalent around Las Vegas. I started trying on Western suits and boots and came up with the absolute coolest suit I've ever worn, complete with bolo tie. Melissa even agreed to rent the outfit to me (something she ordinarily doesn't do) because it was only going to be for one night, for one song, and because I looked so fucking good in it. It's a blue western suit with an orange shirt (the shirt is made by Marlboro), brown pointy toed boots. All I need is a big ten-gallon cow boy hat, in case anyone has one. I have a very large head, so it would need to an XL or something...

Anyway, that show is on the 26th in case anyone is interested in checking it out. It should be a really good time! If you want to go, it's probably a good idea to get your tickets in advance: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/153571

In other news, how about them Egyptians?