Archive for January, 2010

Yesterday, the vog was so bad that my eyes wept sulphurous tears. West Maui became an apparition in the toxic mist. The winds out of the south being in cahoots with Kilauea and its relentless belching of partially digested magma tar-tare. We live in a stage four geofart zone. This is sobering news.

Statistically we are more likely to develop respiratory complications such as  hot vog drip, crumble jaw, donkey whoop and epoxy mucus.  Because of the high mercury content, neural networks could experience crashes and rerouting which would require the downsizing of various life functions not vital to survival, like those icons on your desktop that rarely get used.

So don't be surprised if you start forgetting what comes after seven, or the name of your dog or where you parked when you went shopping at Krispy Kreme, or why you were shopping at Krispy Kreme. Don't bother consulting your doctor. Their judgement has long since been impaired.

We are, of course beyond grateful for the karma that dropped us in the outpost that is Maui. At the same time it is one of those wonderful ironies that in order to be here we must  endure an inkling of what it might be like to be stuck in Satans waiting room, getting ready to interview for an entry level position and weeping over the scent of the receptionists body odor.

Clearly we don't need all the brain cells we are given so no sweat, and neural networks are easy to build. Go take a math course or crochet a birdcage, memorize the first thousand numbers in the Fibonacci series or write a song in a language you don't know using notes no one's ever heard. Toss in a little Gotu Kola and Ginko Biloba and shazayumm, good as new and on to the next challenge as the merry goes round.

Speaking of which, the pace of life at the Rancho continues to involve routines that take us ever closer to a subject/object synchronicity. Feeling like the moves we make support the vitality and productivity of our little project and gently and joyously urge us onward to ever deepening perceptions and connections to the whole, being human thing. Turns out that acts of selflessness light up the same part of the brain as acts of satisfying sexuality. So go fuck yourself.

The farmers market in makawao has got all the elements of the world in microcosm. There's a bunch of ex-patriated haoles gathered together from various parts of "never goin' back there again". There's Uma from India and mamasita from Whatamala and Gabriella from Brazil and tita from Paia. There's coconut boy and the guy with the live plants. There's neo hippies and bruddah uncle. One can make the rounds and leave with shopping bags brimming with everything from plant material to lush green vegetables to organically grown tomatoes to honey to fruits of multiple and rare varieties to home made soaps and freshly sprouted seeds and the mouthwatering samosa's of Uma.

The Rancho welcomed nurse Caley a couple of weeks back and turns out she plays guitar and uke, writes songs and sings like a freakin' angel. Her voice can be heard ringing out (and I know she's holding back) in this little grassy parking lot, bordered on one side by a building and on the other by Baldwin avenue, leaving two sides adjacent to vacant lots with grass and tall trees. There's a big avo and a lychee that overhang the back fence line and a tangerine tree that produces fruit sour as a spinster on a man-rant. We're gonna bring some percussion instruments this week and see what we can whip up.

Speaking of which, we've been whipping up new House of Yumm treats. Thanks to Dinah's can do attitude, tinged ever so slightly by the notion that we're all doomed, we began experimenting with dehydrating the white sapote, which is the fruit that bears the most poundage of any in the orchard and has three fruiting seasons.

Sure enough with a little experience a process emerged which made it easy enough to dry the buggahs, an so we sent some money through cyberspace, got a slick little commercial unit, an jus' li dat, in bizzness.

So far the biggest hit is the Banana Buzz Bar, otherwise known as turd wafers. Its just bananas mashed up with raw cacao powder and extruded in wide strips on to the backs of naked tourists at little beach. There they sit until almost taffy like at which point they are peeled off, cut into three inch squares, dipped in a mild solution of salt water and psilocybin, bagged up and sold at the farmers market or wherever covert Philipino cock fighting can be watched.

We've had some success, but mostly the process has opened up an enormous area that deserves, nay requires study. That of Food Science. I'm mostly a hit or miss kind of person in the kitchen. You won't find fancy tools or cook books or measuring devices. Would probably be mashing the bananas by hand over a bowl in the sink with the look of mighty Joe Young rubbing one out if my step sister hadn't sent me a Cuisinart food processor (a miracle on par with the Sham wow, by the way).

Along with these exotic extrusions, we’ve also been managing our excess papaya, atemoya, mango and sapote in addition to the occasional fruit leather roll up blends that we intend to market as vegan spliff holders. You can burn the herb as you chew your way through a sweet satisfying dessert. The beginning stages of  a new enterprise are always the most creatively exhilarating. We're looking to the newly sanctioned medical user demographic. High munchie potential.

Speaking of which, I was chatting with Dinah the other day and she was sitting there on the couch, legs all akimbo in her shorty shorts and a few seconds went by and she said, "why are you staring at my crotchel topography?" And I said, "because of the glowing fuchsia aura, flecked with gold particles which seem to dance within and radiate out to about here (I indicated a spot about fifteen inches above her tummy). And also because your vagina is reciting Hamlets famous soliloquy in the nunnery scene:"

To be or not to be – that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. And so on...

"Don't you hear that," I asked. She demurred in an off handed and casually sexy kind of way as she slowly crossed her legs. "That better," she asked, batting her eyelashes.

"Still glowin' and the speech is just muffled, I said, but that's o.k. because whats really interesting here is that you've taught your vagina to recite Shakespeare. Your splendor is beyond measure."

She looked at me deep and wagged her index finger slowly as she lowered her head to mine. All at once her finger came to rest across her lips and she said, "Ssshhhhhhuushhshhhh!"

Then I woke up and ate a goofy smile for breakfast.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Big kiss, Jp

Late last night in the living room, dimly lit with a candles flicker, the serenity was punctuated only by the barely audible  hum of a small swarm of fruit flies hovering over and feasting on a few tangor peels and some lilikoi pulp that got tossed into a bowl in the sink. Tiny wings flapping frantic, fanning the incense. A thought floated by.....

The number ten is the only number that contains within itself the two digits and only the two digits upon which all of computer binary code is based, 1 and 0. It could be argued that the first year of the century contains those digits as in 01' but that would be poppycock, pure and simple.  So what, you say?

If this humble combination of digits is capable of generating the entire world of computerspeak , might this not be the year to install  new operating systems, upgrade to more sustainable configs. and apps., flash our own BIOS's? Too fringy? O.k., if only for the symbolic certainty of the fact that there is only one year per century that ends with a 1 and a 0. If only for the fact that these are the only two digits which when combined neutralize each other rather than add to or subtract from each other. Ever ask yourself why the pocket protector geeky types chose 1 and 0 instead of say 2 and 0. Neither have I, not that bored yet but I'm just saying.

Nothing in the established political, economic and corporate order of things is changing to the extent to which waves of constructive transformation can take place any time soon. It is still very much an individual and tribal struggle to find our way through Madison Avenue's take on the word sustainable or the u.s.d.a.'s ever morphing definition of organic to an understanding that grows with shifting lifestyle choices and the new skill sets that enable and enrich those choices. Ten start again.

Congratulations are in order. Only once in the history of hosting wwoofers has anyone been elevated to the status of Executive Assistant. This, of course was the Keekster, now working on her masters degree at the only university in zeh virld devoted to the study of organic farming.

Nurse Dinah Foley has been in residence for three months now. While young by chronology she arrived as prepared, if not more so than any to come before her. Cruisin' light with money to spare. The term "hit the ground runnin'" comes to mind. The complexities of farming single crops can be daunting. The grasp of systems diversified by design takes a whole 'nother part of the brain.

Three months is really no time at all, but enough to feel what mojo lies beneath. Executive assistant status is awarded to those who have shown enough of a grasp of whats going on here for me to say, "going traveling now, see you in three months". For a certainty the fine work of Bubbha Mahalo's puts him within this category as well, but him gone, she exude magnetic heat of huge pile of smoldering ragamuffins, me born year of Pig. Everything work out fine.

So it is now Executive assistant Dzzyna Falolee. Reborn with a new kanaka name resembling that of a refreshing tropical cocktail. Here are some insights into her nature. Today, she captured, cuddled, nurtured, bonded with, felt the pain of separation and released into the wild a rooster name of Charles. She knew that my definition of complying with the neighborhood No Rooster rule meant headless dancin' and tasty bits. Already having with intent, witnessed the slaughter of a few ducks and Charles' cousin Skeedaddle, she pled her vegan case for the pardon of the regal and velvety feathered ruler of the road island red roost. So, stashed away cleverly in a layer pellet feed bag Charles was given the ultimate gift of free ranging freedom. He is now pecking his way to order in an undisclosed location having been given a new identity under the auspices of the poultry protection program (feather dye job, taught to walk with a limp).

Her favorite game is Scrabble. She doodles far out sketches while engaging in conversation. She sings in the garden and writes songs with lyrics for our time. She scampers up trees like a monkey. She says things like "word" and fu'shizzle and scrilla.  She's a natural born percussionist. She pops out creative ideas a plenty and she has carved her initials in the heartwood of Rancho Relaxzo. I'd like to give her flowers but she would think that was gay. I'd like to write a song about her but there's only one word that rhymes well with Dinah, and I don't know her That well.

You may see her behind the counter at Grandma's brewing the joe and serving up the grinds. She'll be the one oozing the energy that tickles your beauty bone.

I was playing chess with my humunculus the other day and it told me that my moves were contrived and telegraphed my whole approach to the game. It told me to play it fast and loose like Eddy Felson after a J.T.S. Brown, no ice, no glass. It told me that this whole fooferah over being concerned and doing the right thing was for pussies. It reminded me that the clock is ticking and that like a chicken that has only so many eggs to lay, _____________(your punch line here). It toyed with me until i shoved a coat hanger up my nose and crushed the little fucker..........again. Sometimes its hard to resist the blaze of glory approach. I'd hate to say I'm getting too old 'cause that would pretty much screw the pooch. Welcome to the razors edge.

Anyway, Munkie and me made up and continue the work of maintaining balance in a world off its rocker. I'm pitchin' the responsibility embraced by fun approach while he staunchly adheres to the "only the best and later for the rest" model of dispassionate conservatism. He's a cute little critter in a horrifying sort of way.

Oh yeah, these days we can usually be found selling our goods at the Makawao farmers market on Wednesday. Its across from rodeo general and runs from eleven to five. Its a nice scene, especially when the weather holds. This week we've got two kine banana, two kine oranges, tangelo's, lemons, papaya, white sapote, longan, atemoya, lilikoi, acorn squash, salad greens, froozies, pesto, dried fruit, eggs, honey and a partridge in a mango tree, and if you know the secret password, I'll slip you some hot pepper tincture. Hope to see you there.

"Hey unky jp, didja make any revolutions for the new year?"

"You mean resolutions, dontcha little fellah?" "Whatever, didja?"

"Matter of fact I did, but if I told you it would lose all its power, like passin' gas in a gale."

"You ever gonna trust me, unky jp?" "Probably not, little fellah, probably not."

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp