Welcome guests and unwanted pests

Jana and I have a favorite Japanese noodle restaurant in L.A. called Daikokuya. We’ve been going there for about three-and-a-half years. These noodles are so delicious that we are willing to stand outside in any weather for up to an hour.  When we show up hungry we will go get imagawayaki from another restaurant to snack on while we wait for our name to be called. There has always been this one guy that works there that has really stood out to us. Aside from being a stylish looking charismatic dude even while wearing the Daikokuya T-shirt uniform, he’s extra friendly, and cordial to everyone, and he does his best to make his job fun. Something he does that cracks me up is that he calls your name to be seated in a very deep humorous Japanese to English subtitle kind of voice. It reminded me of my travels in Japan where some of the folks I talked with would exaggerate American English that they learned from television or movies.

On our last visit for noodles before the big move we finally got to meet him. Isn’t that how it always works? He noticed Jana’s turquoise necklace and from that we found out that he loves to travel to Northern AZ and has many similar interests about spirituality and a deep love of the land and nature here. We told him where we were moving and that he should come visit. He did! Chihiro was on a “soul trip” as he calls it driving around the Southwest deciding where he’s going as he goes, connecting with nature, shooting video, taking photos, and collecting objects for a 3-d journal.

The day he came to visit we contacted each other through email and bad cell reception and finally managed to meet him at the highway so he could follow us on the long dirt road to the ranch. We had coffee outside and chatted for a while. It felt really comfortable and easy. It was as if all three of us had known each other for a long time. After coffee we took him on the tour of all the wacky structures around here and then for a nice long hike to some of the prehistoric sites on the property. After sunset we ate dinner watched some of his urban “hip-hop/jazz” dance videos that he dances in and edits himself.  

Chihiro is one talented guy. Besides dancing and video editing he makes beautiful jewelry using leather and gems, but doesn’t really try to sell them. As a true artist he wants to be able to make jewelry and not worry so much about its marketable value. He gave Jana and I a few gems from his trip to Quartzsite and each a hand made necklace. He had planned to see the Grand Canyon at sunrise so shortly after a delicious and spicy dinner that Jana made he headed back to Flagstaff so he could save time getting there in the morning. The visit was short but memorable, and when he left Jana and I both looked at each other in amazement and agreed about how beautifully absurd the world can be sometimes.

Chihiro doing his thing while I admire the colors of the painted desert at sunset.  Photo ©Jana Davis.

The Temple of Life

As you can imagine it’s not all fun and games around here. On Friday before our guests arrived for the temple building work party I took a shot at unclogging one of the toilets using a drum auger. Our toilets are like the kind that you find on boats with a foot pedal that allows you to choose the amount of water you want in the bowl before you flush. Jana and I have perfected the art of minimal toilet paper use, so it is really odd that we are getting the tell-tale “bloop” of water out of the bowl hole before the water goes down after you flush. The way this auger thing works is that you manually feed a snake down the bowl through the pipes and use the handle to crank the snake so it spins around inside the pipes and loosens the unwanted material. As usual, I am in constant multi-tasking mode around here so I started boiling water to flush the pipes after I snaked and figured that while that was boiling I would have time to shave and then take a shower immediately after doing the dirty work. After my shave I hand fed the snake as far as it would go, whipped it a round, (TWSS) and then reeled it back in cranking the crank as it came up. Somehow the snake got bound up wrong inside the drum and sprung out of the top whipping human shit across my bare chest, all over the walls and most noticeably onto my upper lip. I must be learning patience because instead of getting mad or even grossed out my first thought was, “Ooh, this could make good reading in the blog.”

The malevolent  drum auger with the snake popped out of the top.

How can I be upset when 14 or so wonderful people will be arriving to help build a temple in our yard? The Temple of Life will be a non-denominational art encrusted temple designed by Mr. God (aka Royce aka Zebulon) that is currently getting built during work parties that we schedule whenever we have time and the weather permits. Once the structure of the temple is finished we will invite anyone that that is interested to create art on their own designated sized panels. The panels will then get attached to all of the inner and outer walls. Other neat bits of art and cool looking trash will be added to accentuate the temple as we go.

The temple of life as it stands now after the work party. There will be another level added with a skylight that you can walk on and a fire cauldron hanging from the ceiling. Does your temple have a fire cauldron?

It rained parts of the night Friday and it was sketchy as to whether we would get to work on it in the morning, but despite the cold rain and slippery wood we all went for it anyway. There was a bit of a sense of urgency to get the second floor finished and sheeted because we get winds up to 80-100 mph up here and they have already blown down a weekends worth of work on the temple before. Because of the winds we have to build the structure to withstand a hurricane. We spare no expense on nails, it’s anchored to the ground with deep blocks of concrete, reinforced with steel plates, and the framing is solid. Our last mistake was that we didn’t sheet the framing before the wind arrived so this time we had to get the framing sheeted with plywood since it may be a while before the next work party. Thank Mr. God we did it.

Building a temple in the rain. Did you know that God is a middle aged guy that lives in Walnut Creek and wears a white cowboy hat. 

Saint Mo.

We got the plywood nailed in every 6 inches around all the sides yesterday before the wind picked up and started knocking over my extension ladder before I could climb up it. Right now as I type the winds are really blowing. Our wind turbine is screaming like an F-16 taking off. I’m wondering if it’s about to spin apart and slice though the house!

Lawnmower rats?

There is a greenhouse attached to the South side of the house that is full of plants. It is Jana’s intention to refurbish it and start growing edibles as well as her impressive collection of plant children that she brought here from LA. She even has a baby Redwood. Right now the greenhouse is full to the gills with spider plants and San Pedro cactus. It’s positioned to heat up the house so we open doors on each side every morning to let the heat from the plants and the barrels of water heated from the sun in to the main rooms.

One morning I heard, “That little fucker got my succulents!” coming from the direction of the sunroom. The sunroom is where Jana had her personal plants staged before she could move them into the greenhouse. We knew we had cute little mice. One was trapped in the dog food bag and crawled up my arm all the way to my shoulder after I reached in to scoop up some food. I sort of swatted it back into the bag and then captured it and took it outside. It was cold out there and it just nuzzled next to my boot so I gave it a little pet between its shoulder blades before leaving him to fend for himself.

Another night Jana and I had a total Chevy Chase experience trying to trap a little mouse that we saw run under the pantry door. Jana was standing in the back of the closet on top of water bottles as she flushed him towards the doorway where I was poised and ready with Patrick the turtle’s fish tank net. I dove as it effortlessly hopped over the box I was using to block his way. I missed him by a hair as he flung himself under the cupboard and I landed on my side.

We think that besides the little mice we have a bigger problem. We have heard stories of a rat so fierce in these parts that they call them… Lawnmower rats. Most attempts previous residents have made gardening outside were thwarted by what might actually be pack rats or wood rats but because of the level of destruction they cause they are now branded lawnmower rats for obvious reasons.

The lawnmower rat ate several of Jana’s succulents down to nubs so she spent a few whole days moving spider plants out of the greenhouse so she could move her babies out of danger. Or so she thought. Now the “little fucker” is eating San Pedro and ate a chunk out of her Lithops or “living stone” succulent. We have set several live traps in the house. Wish us luck.

Well if you're going to name something a succulent of course its going to get eaten. 

I wonder if lawnmower rats can have entheogenic experiences.

I saw this painting in the "Art Corner" of the gas station half way into town. This is what I imagine it looks like inside Jana's head. Shouldn't every gas station have an art corner?

Even the cows have become an issue. Lately James Turrell’s cows have gotten fearless and have come right up to the house to eat the dried up Datura and tumble weeds. We hear that selling tumble weeds can be a very lucrative business. The dogs can usually scare off the cows but there are just too many around to chase all of the time. Apparently ranchers can shoot our dogs even on our own property if they think they are disturbing the cows. The owner mentioned that sometimes they even take the dogs from the ranch to their house during the calf season because there have been rumors of dogs taking out calves and eating them. Years ago one of their previous dogs was shot and died several days after it came home with its guts hanging out. I don’t know what I would do if I saw Daisy or Duke come home like that.

From inside the temple you can see a giant herd of pests meandering back to their stable to get water.

One night while working late in the art studio I heard an eerie wail like a crying old woman and realized I was hearing a coyote. The dogs started barking and freaking out and the wailing became more intense. I walked outside with an axe to protect my pooches from ravenous packs of coyotes. Duke and Daisy ran up to me all happy to see me, but when the wailing started again they both took off like little guided missiles toward the sound. I figured that they have lived this long out there messing with wild animals and that they obviously didn’t seem to need my help. So I went inside and listened to the concert of critters go on for hours into the night.

The next morning when I went to feed the dogs they came up to the porch to say hi but didn’t even touch their food. I have found dog like skulls in their “lost and found” area and thought that they may have dug up the bones of previous ranch dogs. Now I think those skulls are coyote and that these lovable pups are tougher than I thought.

…And so are we. We’re making this ranch thing happen slowly but surely. We’re hosting events and making art while battling the elements as well as learning to live with them. There are some intense moments, but I’m taking a tip from Chihiro and I’m gradually learning to roll with things, have as much fun as I can, and to make the most of whatever situation I’m in.

Daisy and Duke. Two of the happiest most free little doggies I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

BREAKING NEWS!!! LAWNMOWER RAT AKA WOODY THE WOOD RAT HAS BEEN CAUGHT!

This is what happens to criminals around here... We talk baby talk to them, give them some dog food, and release them miles away from our house.

Having trouble with your droid? No, no problem. Why?

Two weeks have passed by in a flash since my last entry. While attempting to figure out the solar power inverter, the plumbing, and several other mischievous things about this house, we have been busier here than we were during our last month of frantically packing and saying our goodbyes in Venice Beach. 

For the first 23 days we’ve had no hot water in the main house and had to boil water on the stove to wash dishes, clean the kitchen and the rest of the house. We’ve been taking hot showers in a freezing cold room in the "Art Barn" until the pipes over there finally froze.

A few days before my birthday (Jan 9^th) one of the maintenance guys from the STAR School brought over a hot water on demand unit to replace our broken water heater. He and the ranch owner were going to attempt hooking it up as “an experiment”. The unit itself is used; the knobs on it are even from an old kitchen stove that was pilfered from somewhere on the property that day! They worked as long as they could while we went into town to get the parts we needed to finish the job. It's a 60 mile round trip to Flagstaff so going into town to get essentials, groceries, pet store, and Home Depot takes an entire day. By about 4pm on our way back we ran into them on the dirt road heading home. They were beat and called it a day, so it was going to be one more day without hot water.

The next day the maintenance guy came over by himself to finish the job. While hooking up a pipe he ended up braking a section of pvc. No big deal if you live in the city. Here we would have to drive 60 miles round trip again for that one part. So we searched the Art Barn and the Blue Barn and found a box of promising looking pvc connecters. The unit got hooked up! We had hot water for a night. …And then.

“Yay, it’s my birthday. I’m gonna relax today, have a hot shower without having to walk with all my bathroom shit and my clothes and towel in the cold to another freezing house”. I’m sitting on a chair with my legs propped up on an ottoman while checking out Facebook and I hear WHOOOOOSH! I yell to Jana, “I just heard a loud water sound coming from the middle bathroom!”

  “Well check it,” she screams back from the kitchen.  We both run in there and water was gushing from the place where the maintenance guy broke the pipe and rigged it the day before.

This is not the droid you're looking for. The hot water on demand unit.

Jana going for it!

Her "J" is backwards, but "J" is for Jana and "Hot" is for Hot Water Mama.

Yeah, it sucked. But, Jana is super smart, mechanically inclined, and a welder. She took charge and we both came up with solutions to fix it without having to drive into town for parts. While fixing the pipe we somehow broke a copper to brass connection on the unit. We were bummed but quickly rallied. Jana went onYouTube and figured out how to “sweat” copper and brass together using a torch and solder. We searched the grounds and actually found what we needed to weld it back together. We worked on the damn thing all day and managed to fix it. We didn’t even argue and I didn’t even complain about not getting my birthday enchilada dinner. Jana went into town the day before and bought a ton of ingredients for enchiladas and gingered pear upside down cake and planned on baking all day. Turns out we make a pretty good team and we were both pretty proud of our accomplishment so in the end it was a good test for our relationship that in my opinion we passed.

The Blue Barn and the Hippie Bus. Photo by Jana Davis from AZ DECOM 2007.

In the middle of the chaos we have been visiting with friends and family, going on dates to the movies, and checking out the local cuisine. We went to the Flagstaff Art walk in 12-degree weather. What do you say to that Venice Art Crawlers? Yesterday we discovered La Posada Hotel and Restaurant in Winslow. I highly recommend the food there and I really want to stay there sometime. La Posada is also a great example of what artists can do with a historic building no one else knows what to do with. We ended up spending a couple of hours exploring the hotel and looking at all of the historic photos and reading about all of the famous people that have stayed there. I'm wishing for a time in the not to distant future that rail travel comes back in style and there will be a shinkensen (bullet train) from Chicago to LA resurrecting the old route 66 and making stops at beautiful places like La Posada along the way.

A little cold weather cant keep us away from the art. Jana posing in the alley during the January Flagstaff Artwalk.

Somehow I have even managed to squeeze making art into all of this. I’ve been working on a very meticulous sculpture for a show I have in Vegas at Tasty Space on February 1^st. Please come say hi if you’re in the area! Click here for the Facebook invite.

Detail of the sculpture I'm working on. You'll have to see the whole thing in person in Vegas Feb 1st- March 31st 2013

Napoleon "Bone-apart" before I started bending him into a fetal/cannon-ball position. The thing he's laying on is actually a real coffin under a sheet. Imagine me on top of this skeleton trying to bend its spine on a coffin out in the boonies with Jack the attack cat watching.

Here I am threading pom-poms onto monofilament for the sculpture. 

At the moment neither of us have normal jobs (whatever that is). At this rate I have no idea how we are going to. I do however still have my side job picking up missing balloons. When I ran on the beach I had one rule. I had to pick up any balloons or plastic bags that I saw. Sea turtles, other animals, and birds often mistake balloons and plastic bags for food. Plastic bags look a lot like Jellies to a Sea turtle and every balloon and bag I see on the beach makes me think of a dead turtle. So if you see a balloon or a plastic bag PICK IT UP!

On my last run on the beach in Venice I picked up 10 balloons. A record. I usually only find one or two.

Latex ones are the worst, especially the pink ones. A lot of sea creatures are pink.

I saw this on the same day I found all the balloons and thought that this guy suffocated from having a bag stuck on its head. On closer inspection it is actually its own throat pouch wrapped around his beak.

Way up here there are no living Sea turtles and almost zero trash. Saw this way out in the middle of nowhere  on my most recent walk with the dogs and just started laughing.

I actually enjoy all of this pioneer stuff. The cold weather and snow is exotic to me and I really like doing manly primal tasks like chopping wood and lighting fires in the wood burning stoves. Maybe it will get old, maybe I’ll like it so much I'll want to stay here forever. Either way, I’d like to think my future self is proud of our efforts here. If he’s tried to make contact to tell me so I’ve been too busy to hear it.

Time Bending

On New Years Eve we had a little gathering of folks here at the ranch. It was a day of insights and sharing of information including a heart opening ceremony and a little time bending.

During the day and on into the night we had a lot of intriguing conversation and often the topic revolved around time. I brought up a story about a time when I was a kid getting ready for grade school in front of a mirror and I had a “visit” from an older wiser self. Future me told young me that everything was going to be o.k., that I was going to have an interesting life full of travel, and that I would have everything that I needed. So, when I was around 36ish (about how old my future self would have been) I thought about that message, looked into the mirror, and sent it to my younger self.

I like to time travel. Sometimes I send messages to myself. I was sitting on my couch in Venice thinking about a time only a month in the future when I would be sitting on my couch after it (and I) had been moved to the ranch in AZ. I visualized myself there—so that when I was there—I would remember to remember sitting in Venice wondering how this move was going to go down. Once in the new digs I sent a message to my past self telling him that it would be fun, to roll with it, and that things will work out.

Another person has had visits from what she calls "the old folks" which are future versions of her and her husband. The old folks are full of laughter and pass along very detailed insights and messages. There was so much information that she dictated four pages during the first visit. After a while her husband started to receive messages from the old folks as well.

We came up with a great idea for a New Years intention to send messages to our future selves living one year from Dec 31^st 2012. The main theme of the message was to send gratitude to our future selves for sending us each messages and guidance throughout the year 2013. The most genius thing about this particular message is that it insures that there will in fact be future selves to send messages to. I saw myself sitting in the circle in the same room here at the ranch next year.

We all went around the room giving our intentions and coming up with some very clever and creative time bending messages. I will let you know what I receive from the future Bill.

Not exactly a DeLorean, but it's a trip seeing my car out front covered in snow.

This is where we are presently (whatever that means). Property line Section 12 and 13.

The passage of time. Mouse mummy excavated in the art studio. 

Planning Mountain

A lot has happened since the last entry I posted from Venice. We often put off packing so we could hang out with as many of our wonderful friends and neighbors as we could before we left, we ate at several restaurants we still hadn’t made it to, and met a bunch of amazing new people that were right under our noses the whole time. When you’re in transition its funny how things like that get amplified. In our last couple of weeks in town I met two famous musicians that I'm inspired by. I met Henry Rollins. I listen to his radio show on KCRW while I’m painting, and its one of those LA things that I can bring with me out here via the interweb. It was really a pleasure to meet him in person. I got to thank him for his dedication to sharing his extensive personal music collection in such an entertaining and educating way. I’m grateful to have the memory of our meeting and to be able to think of it while listening to his live show here in the studio at the end of the trail. Jana and I also met Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) through our friend Sunny Bak. The Beastie Boys music has been influential and inspiring to both Jana and I and I always wondered if we’d get to meet any of the Beasties one day. Sunny used to photograph the Beastie Boys back in the day in Brooklyn. Her photo studio was where the Fight for Your Right to Party music video was shot. LA is like that; Venice especially, there are awesome talented people around every corner, some just happen to be celebrities.

Sidebar: As I sit here on the top floor bedroom of the ranch house the wind is starting to pick up big time. It can get up to 80 mph. I have to go check on the wood burning stove to make sure its rockin’ otherwise the wind will blow the smoke back down the pipes and smoke us out. …And as you may imagine, it’s cold outside!

The trip moving all of our stuff was pretty straightforward and uneventful. We did a ton of planning to make it as easy as possible. We hired local movers to load and unload the truck and it was the best money we spent. A synchronicity occurred with the moving help. One of the local Venice movers was a massage therapist and one of the local Flagstaff movers was also a massage therapist. Jana just graduated massage school and is planning to get her business started here. I’d like to see it as a sign that it will work out the way she wants it to. It was actually really fun driving the big truck and communicating via walkie-talkie with Jana while she drove my Mini Cooper that she had full of half of her plants, the fish, (tank bubbler was plugged in to the cigarette lighter) and Patrick the 17-year-old water turtle was in a box of towels.

It looks like the little mini is pulling the whole caravan.

Once we got to the Ranch there were a few little things we had to learn quickly. The first lesson came from the wind and we did indeed get smoked out in the morning after the fire died down in the back room. The trick is that you have to have the fire blasting to keep the wind from pushing down the pipe. Smoke came billowing through the front of the stove and I had to go outside find a big clay pot, transfer the smoking logs from the stove to the pot and set the thing smoldering outside.

View of the road leading to our new home.

We’ve had some issues with the power. The original solar batteries had to be replaced. The owners are really busy with the school since it’s the holidays and they still managed to get us a new set of 4 batteries to replace the old ones. Much love and gratitude to them for getting them installed so quickly! Soon there will be a total of 8 but for now we really have to watch our power use. Even turning on the 10 amp Satellite internet modem sucks a lot of our power and we need to conserve it just to have lights on in the evening.

The new batteries inspired a happy dance. Prior to these beauties
showing up we had to heat up water on the propane stove and blow air into the fishtanks to keep the fish alive.

One of the first chores I picked to do was to chop out the 5" thick ice and scoop
out all of the water from the wood burning hot tub. 

The reason we moved on the 18^th instead of waiting for after the Holidays was because we were invited to participate in a Sweat Lodge ceremony here at the ranch on December 21st. I had never done one before and so I didn’t know exactly what the significance was going to be or what the ceremony itself was going to be about. I just knew it was going to be hot in there and cold outside and I was planning for the physical aspects of it more than anything. As it turns out one of the main themes of this ceremony is about planning for the future. The facilitator called the sweat lodge a “Planning Mountain” and emphasized that our group of 8 people and our prayers could make a difference and influence a positive change in the world. During the ceremony we showed our gratitude to Mother Earth and all of her inhabitants, we made statements about our current condition, and prayers asking for help and guidance for humanity to change some of its ways in order to create a better more sustainable world to live in. We literally planned and wished for a brighter future for the Earth, Nature, Human kind, and for our own personal journeys. The 21^st has been hyped up as the end of the world. We did our small part to manifest a new beginning. What an auspicious way to begin this next adventure!

The Sweat Lodge the day after with the canvas it was wrapped in taken down. James Turrell's cows knocked over the traditional structure they used to use they had a new frame built made of metal. You can see the Grandfathers (stones in the central ring) and the mats we sat on drying out. The mats we brought were used at the Venice pad to wipe beach sand off of our feet before we got into bed.

Merry Christmas and a prosperous and abundant New Year to all from Bill, Jana, and Patrick. "All my relations".

Dear anonymous tagger, I do believe I shall take you up on your request.

Venice Beach

—Long Beach 2003-2008 was a blur.

—Hollywood 2008-2010 was beautifully absurd.

—Venice Beach 2010-2012 was therapy.

The other night I was at the Largo listening to Henry Rollins doing his spoken word thing. He mentioned a quote about Los Angeles as being "No man's city".  I can't remember the name of the quotee. I could probably email Henry. He actually answers all of his email, but I don't think it really matters who said it. The meaning holds true to me. So much goes on here. Everyone has a hustle. Most of my friends and I are living our dreams. Its hard to get time with folks sometimes, even just to have drinks. To paraphrase Henry, (A guy that is on tour or exploring some remote country most of the year) he basically said, "This city is one of those places where you can be gone for an extended time and no one knows that you left. When you're gone you dont really miss LA, and it doesn't miss you either". As far as the city is concerned your just busy working on a project somewhere and one day you will just reappear at The Townhouse or Daikokuya. It knows you will be back. I'm so used to working on the East Coast or traveling that it feels as if I'm not really leaving. I will be back often to visit friends, go to art openings and shows—hopefully to be in a few—and stay connected. The odds are pretty good that I will probably see my LA friends more now that I'll be living 6 hours away and some will even ask, "You still in Venice? Lets hang out maybe next week sometime."

Laterz Southern California. It has been a dream, an extended vacation...surreal.

Tiger cry

Venice Beach. A dream. 

I’m in an apartment I’ve never seen in this life before. I share it with a few artists and it is also our art studio. It feels like New York even though it is superbly clean. I must be doing well to afford it. I’m sitting on a large freshly made bed in the apartment/studio and I get a phone call from a woman in her mid-fifties that I’ve never seen or met before. She’s a little chubby, has short hair, green eyes, and is very well dressed. I know this because even though we are chatting on the phone she is also at the edge of my bed staring directly into my eyes as we talk. I could describe her in a police line up she was so vivid and clear even though I have never seen this woman before in consensual reality.

She tells me that she’s seen my artwork online and called to buy some of my paintings for herself and for her business. 

The signal becomes patchy and she is hard to hear and understand even though I can still see her clearly. I’m trying hard to retain what she is saying and look around to find pen and paper. I can’t find them but I’m totally calm and figure that I will be able to put something together for her from the information I have.

Next I find myself on the city street still on the phone with the lady. It is definitely New York. Not far away from where I stand is a subway entrance and across the street is a scrawny scared looking tiger. The tiger is sad and crying out into the air with a deep guttural howl. Steam is jetting out of her maw. Her rib cage expands and contracts to the beat. I figure she must have escaped from somewhere, maybe a zoo, and she is lost.

I tell the lady on the phone, “Holy shit, there is a tiger on the street!”  I am totally alert and aware that this tiger could easily kill me if she wants to. Still on the phone, I start walking toward the tiger. “I have dreams like this,” I say into the phone. I could care less about the potential sale and I hang up on her and start to run at the tiger. When I get close to the tiger she bolts towards the subway entrance. The entrance has a large closed metal door that I know is locked. The tiger slams herself headfirst at the small space under the metal door making a loud clanging scrambling sound as she awkwardly squeezes herself through it. Her body twists and contorts like a cartoon character and her tail sucks under the door flapping like spaghetti being slurped up. It is the last I see of her.

I have to head back to the studio to warn my friends not to take the subway!

I make it halfway down a dirty alley and an adolescent lion is sitting like a dog with his butt against the wall of a building panting as if he had been running or playing and is now taking a short break. His eyes lock onto mine his jaws are open, his tongue is moving in and out of his mouth and his head bobs back and forth as he pants. I can’t tell if he wants to eat me or play. He has jerky movements like a young animal or a toddler that is still learning how to work its body. He has beautiful green eyes like the woman on the phone. I know it’s too late to run away so I run toward him. I know it’s the wrong thing to do. Running will trigger his instinct to chase and take me down. I do it anyway. I had a “thing” in my hand. It could be a piece of wood or garbage, it doesn’t really matter, maybe it was my phone. I toss it in the direction of the lion like it’s a toy to distract him. I come up on the lion in a full run. We merge into each other and begin to run as one entity towards the studio.

I woke up feeling excited and exhilarated. My personal interpretation of this dream is much more involved but this is the gist: The tiger to me represents elusiveness, and efficiency as a solo hunter. The subway represents transition. The lion hunts in a pride and is very social and even playful. The lion—for me—is also a symbol of courage. I have been the tiger most of my life. I am very independent and have been on a solo journey to re-remember my identity and connect with my higher self and it has been rewarding. I feel grateful to have made it this far in what I consider to be a fulfilling successful life full of surprises and absurdity. I still have a long way to go, and learning is an endless process, but I have recently found my stride and my voice. Even though I am sad to move on from the tiger’s ways it is time to share what I have been hunting for all these years and continue to hunt with my friends, family, and the community as the courageous lion. 

Tiger Cry is also a delicious Thai food dish of marinated grilled sirloin.

...And it's also this.

Approval from Mother Ocean

Venice Beach

I’ve been going for a run on the beach almost every other day for the past few years here in Venice. Today was one of the top five beach days I’ve had here in terms of weather, stillness of the ocean, and notably obvious synchronicities.

I have to set the stage. Remember this is November at 10am. The sun was out and it was warm with subdued light and it’s actually supposed to rain. I was wearing only swim trunks and I was comfortable if not warm. The beach was freshly graded meaning there are no footprints or trash on the fluffy part and it’s really neat to walk on. The water was gently lapping the sand. It’s usually a washing machine out there. I only saw a few people and everyone was unusually smiley. The air was still with a slight breeze. Just perfect.

I get a sharp sentimental pang.  I’m moving away from this? It may be a long time before I have another opportunity to play near the ocean everyday I if want.

I remind myself to shake it off, because moving to the ranch in Northern AZ is a no brainer. I can hardly sleep from the excitement of it. 

Ok, back to the moment. I walk past the lifeguard tower and onto the harder packed wet sand to begin my run. I take a few steps toward the pier and a mini wave rushes up the beach and deposits a tumbleweed directly in my path. Of all the times I’ve been out there I have never ever noticed a tumbleweed.

I look around to see if anybody else is seeing this and go up to inspect it and sure enough it’s a tumbleweed. I just start laughing.

Tumbleweeds abound at the ranch. Digging up tumbleweeds and burning them will be one of my major chores out there.

It was as if the ocean was saying, “You are going to leave all this for tumbleweeds?”

I go on my run. The ocean and the ocean birds and other critters are putting on their best show. I'm amazed at how little trash there is. They dont grade where the ocean meets the sand. There has been an upsetting amount of trash on the beach lately due to the extreme high and low tides of the season. I reach the breakwater where I usually stop and touch a certain rock with my foot to say that I made it and catch my breath. As I turn around a much older and very voluptuous woman is fast paced walking towards me. She has her exercise jacket pulled up above her breasts to cool off exposing large swinging bosoms and a wiggly belly. The undershirt she is wearing is the color of her skin and completely see through. I will leave it to your imagination as to what my first thought might have been. The little voice in my head said, “Mother”. I am thinking of the archetypal mother—Not necessarily my mother, but mother in the general sense. I started to run past her and back towards the pier analyzing and wondering about my experiences with the tumbleweed, the Mother, and my connection with the ocean. 

As I get about half way I notice that the waves are getting bigger as the tide is coming in giving the ocean the endlessly chaotic vibe that I’m used to. Just like that! A big wave pops up out of nowhere and rushes up the leg of my trunks depositing a pristine white baby bottle full of milk directly at my feet. I see what’s going on. I stop to acknowledge the ocean and offer my gratitude and thanks for her protection while Jana and I have been living and playing here at her beach. 

From where I am stopped gazing out to the horizon I see another sight I had yet to see on this stretch of the beach. Out on the water and really close are dozens of California Sea lions porpoising and frolicking in the water. It looked really playful as if they were doing it for the shear joy of it all. Most likely, considering the amount of sea birds around them they were probably hunting fish, but it was still quite a timeless and beautiful performance to behold. Every single time I have gone out to the ocean it has been dynamic and awe inspiring in some way, and on days like today—a learning experience. Thank you Mother Ocean.

Structure fire for AZ DECOM 2010 at the ranch.
The effigy was filled with tumbleweeds.
Notice the huge pile of tumbleweeds on the right.