Back at The Hump Hostel.... feels like being home again.... IT's good to feel at home when you're sad....
i can't write this right now, because IT's too late at night and i'm too sleepy and emotionally drained, but i will write this over the next several days, i feel.... i will need some time to process these huge feelings wracking my spirit....
.... So now, a couple of days later, i think i can begin putting words to this stuff.... We got into the Hump on the 19th and got on the net; i checked my email and so did Tiffany, and everything was completely normal.... And then Tiffany looks up with wide eyes, and says, "Nolan.... Bob Epstein died."
She shows me the Daily Camera obit online, and sure enough, there's a pic of dear old Bob, and a story written by someone who didn't know him, saying that he passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on October 11th.... In shock, i check back in my email, and sure enough, there's a letter from Jackie telling about how the two of them had just taken an amazing trip to Spain, how Bob had fulfilled a long-time wish to be in Barçelona on his 60th birthday among Antonio Gaudi's treasured creations, how romantic IT had been, and how many inspirations and plans had come out of this wonderful trip.... They returned to the states very happy and excited for the future.... And then one day shortly thereafter, Bob had a heart attack and was pronounced gone at 1 AM....
Crying, i call Jackie, Margie, Josh, and get all machines.... Finally, Alex picks up his phone; he and Josh and Cass are all at Bob's house still, and i speak with each of them in turn, expressing my sorrow and love.... Josh tells me that IT was a very clear expression of Bob's love for me that he let me store my stuff up in the music room storeroom, because whenever anyone asked him if they could store stuff at his place, he ALWAYS said no.... So the fact that he said yes to me was a pretty big love deal.... That was nice to hear amongst all the tears.... He also said that they were keeping the music room as is, and they would keep my stuff safe for me until i return....
Crying out on the deck couches at the Hump, i write to everyone i know who knew Bob, letting everyone know about his passing and asking them to join me in remembering to love the people we love as much as possible RIGHT NOW, and let them know IT while we're all around to love each other.... Cause god damn! Any day, any of us.... BAM! No more being around! IT can happen so fucking suddenly.... just ask Bob!
Bob Epstein drove a cab in NYC, worked as a stagehand at the Fillmore East and saw the Grateful Dead, Janis joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, and many, many more.... Bob was at Woodstock in '69, lived on a functioning commune in New York State, has attended so many motorcycle rallies at Sturgis that he doesn't even go anymore.... Bob is an artist, a sculptor, a guitarist, a singer, and an appreciator and collector of art and comics and music and jokes and all things surreal, psychedelic, weird, and hilarious.... He's made his own electric guitars, customized art-parts for Harleys, bizarre sculptures, and a quiet and wonderful life for himself out on a beautiful property in Lafayette, Colorado, looking out towards the beautiful Rocky Mountains fringing the horizon....
Bob Epstein is a gentle, sweet and loving big bear of a guy who can get really gruff if he needs to, or can be the sweetest, huggiest dude.... From what i understand, he used to get very frustrated about some things in life; but i think in his later years while i've known him, he's had a better understanding of his own frustrations to the point where he can diffuse them early (at least IT seems so while i've been around him).... He is a wise and tolerant person, has an appreciative relationship with his Judaic heritage but heartily embraces any and every spirituality from around the world, and has been a loving partner with the amazing and beautiful Jackie Buckner for over twenty years.... i have loved playing guitars and singing harmonies with him for years now, and he always has said that i'm one of his favorite-ever people to sing with; we've played more little jams with his old band buddies than i remember now, out there in his little cluttered art/music studio and wood shop, sung so many good tunes together, jammed out way too loud, hit a few beautiful songs spot-on with harmonies to raise some goosebumps and bright smiles, and even played a couple of shows together with his old band "Wasted Youth".... Bob has been like a second dad to me ever since i met him, and has been helping me to positively re-envision what life can look like in so many ways that IT's taking me a long time to even begin putting them all into words....
"You should get the Dead Guy Ale.... Oh, i didn't mean IT like that." - Tiffany (and yes, he's laughing)
"Wow, i'm not even hungry now, seeing how much you guys ate.... i've got a contact full." - Colin Flahive, on our epic Salvador's meal
TIFFANY: "Go for IT, dude.... Get the Star Destroyer with Rum Raisin on top."
ROTEM: "Are you gonna caress me when i'm pooping myself out on the street?"
"i can't say no to old men!" - Rotem
- Well, i finally bought my closed-toe shoes that i've really been needing in these muddy villages these past several weeks.... After trying on crap shoes in a whole bunch of shoe stores, Ritodhi and Rotem and i stumbled upon the footwear motherlode on the basement floor of a big mall building near the Hump.... The CATerpillar Store! Big heavy giant awesome brown CAT boots called the "Colorado Special" for, uh, $185.... Yes, i realize that's like a third of my month's budget, and i also know that these shoes are made like tanks and will hold up and care for my feet for (hopefully) a long time to come.... Of course, any thoughts about "having time" seem rather farcical after today's difficult news.... Yet happy i am to have these excellent clodhoppers, and i hope to take care of them as well or better as they take care of me....
Now, the all-inverted cards i pulled in asking for guidance surrounding this laughably expensive purchase were NOT seemingly in favor of my pulling the trigger on the footwear deal; and yet, my true instincts were to go ahead and hook myself up with good-quality necessary gear, so i must look to the card-meanings involved as necessary reminders in the process about what's REALLY of true importance here.... Namely, that the shoes aren't the main point! Learning true love and the landscape of my heart (inverted Page of Cups) is the real work to be done, requiring attention to be paid to the support and wisdom of the Mother and not harping so much on self-sufficiency and rigid adherence to habituated patterns (inverted King of Discs), experiencing too much attachment to permanence and security through the expensive shoes (inverted Magician) and experiencing difficulty in understanding how a potentially wrong choice may still turn out okay (inverted Sun).... In this way, i can understand how buying the shoes is a good thing, and still keep focus in mind on what i'm really supposed to be doing here....
But upon reflection beyond even these understandings and reminders, i sense an overall message that i need to state in plain terms: Doing the same things as i am used to (using lots of money/resource to purchase potential security) WILL NOT assist in this process that i intend of evolution beyond my current shackled boundaries.... IT is okay that i have done this action, but not to the point that i lose sight of this important reality! The cards are beckoning me further and further out to an uncharted sea, and the more lifelines to shore to which i cling, the more tethered i am to an existence of familiarity and self-imprisonment....
Wow, today was the day that we almost saw Shaquille O'Neal! The crowd of hundreds of excited people surrounding a small stage area in the entrance to the Brilliant Plaza off the main walking mall attested to the fact that we were in Kunming at the same time as the Shaq Attack.... Unfortunately, he wasn't scheduled to make his appearance for another hour and ten minutes from the time that Tiffany, Rotem and i wandered by.... So we were not blessed with each other's presences....
- Ritodhi and i are generally very much on the same wavelength (which just doesn't happen for me very often), and i am super-psyched to have such a supportive friend in my immediate sphere.... i hope to travel to India soon, with the knowledge that i have a solid friend and point of connection in a land that is (in all probability) going to rock my world in ways i don't understand right now.... Ritodhi says that one can't go to India expecting to find the enlightenment and peace of spirit that all these shmoes from the west tend to expect; he says that isn't the way IT works, and that India will kick my ass in every way i can imagine because IT is a place where life is simply not lived in ANY WAY that i am accustomed to.... From the inside out (Delhi Belly, etc.).... Rotem and Tiffany keep saying that i'm going to die in India, and Ritodhi is consistent in his encouragement and support of my abilities to adapt and grow, which i really appreciate more than i can say.... His recommendation to me is to get a jute bag and Indian clothes and leave all my nice gear with someone i trust, and to travel the land as an Indian person would for a while, to become a person that i have not been, and not in the Eat Pray Love bullshit way.... anyway, we'll see about all this.... But India is on my radar
Wow, i've really been hitting my head a lot for the past few days.... Three times getting off the bus in Kunming, punching myself in the face, the shelf in the Hump common area, the iron lamppost decoration on the street, the side of my bunk bed in the Hump dorm, the overhang out on our midnight walk.... What does IT mean? When will IT change?
"How much is IT gonna cost for me to put your stuff in my shit?" - Tiffany
"Arrrggghhh.... Poop in ass want out!" - Rotem
Rotem is catching his flight to Beijing this evening, in preparation for heading back home to Israel in three days, so a proper celebration was necessary.... We had a fully epic last meal for the Fantastic Four at the promised-land all-you-can-eat sushi & hotpot restaurant on the fourth floor rooftop of one of the nearby mall buildings.... goddamn IT was good, so much food and then us all groaning and staggering out of the place.... We ate them into submission so completely that they had to close their doors; all the waitstaff and cooks packed up and beat IT, and we left our table a wasteland of destroyed foodstuffs, crumbled cookies, and sushi dumped in the hotpot broth....
"Hey, IT's not gay.... IT's love!" - Rotem
Pole dancing with the gay boys! Going out to clubs in China is the only time i can ever remember feeling like a hot girl.... Everybody is so friendly, and people just keep giving me beer.... especially in the gay bar!
- Two girls, arm in arm, walk by us at the end of our slightly drunk dancing night; one slightly smiling, the other visibly sad and sullen, carrying a giant teddy bear.... "Just goes to show, teddy bears can't buy you happiness," says Aussie Rhiana....
There is a Father & Son duo which sings karaoke together out in the square in front of the Hump for dough.... The son is two-something, maybe three years old, and singing VERY off-key.... Keep practicing, kid, IT's a long way to the top....
"Care grass as protect skin" - Kunming park sign
"No Thino To Lose" - Kunminger's t-shirt
Well, looks like a Halloween return trip to Shaxi might be in the works.... Ritodhi is saying he'd rather go and deepen his information about one of his key areas that he's studied, instead of going and getting shallow info on a completely new area with no contacts or introductions.... "Return To Shaxi" might be just what the doctor ordered....
Lying in bed, writing about Bob and listening to sad songs, having my grief and my thanks all at the same time, i take out the cards to randomly flip through, looking at them.... and one card is backwards in the deck, with the backside towards me.... How does this happen? This never happens.... except sometimes IT does.... i flip IT over, to reveal: the Card of Impermanence, inverted....
Good Taro reading for little Aussie Rhianna before her departure for back-home, concerning transitions into upcoming adulthood for her.... IT was a good reading (Consummation, Catch & Release inverted, The Fool inverted, Schism inverted), and IT felt good to do an actual reading for someone again! i'm thinking about taking a day and just setting up shop at the Hump tables, giving readings to anyone who wants....
Nicklas is a big baby-faced Swedish guy from Gothenberg who is a hell of an understated dancer, with little funny moves, a big smile, and a jolly perspective on life; he plays some guitar, bartends at a jazz club called Nefertiti back home, and hangs out with....
Hanna is a wonderful supercool skinny kickboxing musician girl from Gothenberg in Sweden; she plays trumpet and flute for Irish and Swedish folk music, harbors a wish to go do a tour of American folk and bluegrass festivals, and is a sensitive and insightful soul - not to mention her fun dancing! She and Nicklas should start a dance troupe.... They are both going to be travelling in India, and IT is entirely possible that we all may spend christmas down in Auroville, the organic farming community in southeast India....
- Well, quite the saturday night in Kunming! Ritodhi and i got a bunch of white people excited about the prospects of being given free beer at the gay club downstairs from the Hump, and then we dressed to impress.... Making our appearance as the Gay Terrorist and the Space Cowboy, we were the gayest guys in the gay bar for a night.... We showed the gay guys what IT means to be gay! Several memorable stage dances, pole dances, conga lines being led by a dude in a full Bugs Bunny suit with one regular eye and one black hole, sexy girls climbing poles and hanging upside-down, and finally the stupidly-drunk guy who fell into the table and then ate IT right down on Rianne's knee, dislocating IT into a nasty unnatural position! At this point, our party ended, as Rose and i carried poor Rianne out onto the outer deck and the medics were called.... They put her knee back in place (and man, was she a tough cookie! Holding IT together the whole time; i would have been freaking my shit), and told her she'd be okay, but she wanted to go to the hospital to be checked out....
Tiffany, Iris, and Rianne just returned home to the Hump from the hospital; Tiffany reports that the doctor said three days, no walking, but she'll be fine.... That's very good news, considering her shit looked straight fucked.... whew
- Today i have been reborn, with the shining light of Buddha and the snake demons penetrating my soul! i feel like i've given birth to a simpering bat-boy and an army of underwater rats....
Ritodhi and Nicklas and Hanna and i took a walk over to the movie theater today, and although they sneakily tried to get us to see Green Lantern in 3D, we rose victorious to see the most amazing movie of 2011: "IT's Love"! Tony Ching's masterpiece, clearly, in all ITs sub-par-CG glory, IT also features Jet Li in his most compelling role to date as Master Faihi, Buddhist demon-hunter! i could try to explain this crowning jewel of Chinese cinema in writing, but i think that the intricacy of the plot and the amazingness of the cinematography warrant a different rendering altogether.... So i think i'd like to present the brilliance of this film through the nonlinear sharing of ITs myriad imagery....
IT's Love: Buddhist disciple waking up in the morning to find he has pointy ears and fangs; A white snake locked away in a pagoda tower; A floating inflammable spirit-herb that undulates like an octopus; Romantic underwater kisses amid breath bubbles; Demon-hunting; Incestuous lesbian snake women; Cock-a-Doodle wine; Giant golden Buddha-hands; Master Faihi writhing and convulsing, covered in snake-bites, lying atop Buddha's giant head; Bromance mouth-to-mouth CPR; Mountain herb-picking; Elderly talking turtle
"Celebrate space - will have opportunity - talk with international" - Kunming girl's shirt
"If i didn't have to put food on the table in order to go to work, i sure as hell wouldn't do that." - Tiffany
Playing the Halfway House's open mic tonight, i had one of the best times i've had in China so far.... The venue is run by a musician and guitar player who loves Bob Marley, so there were many pictures and much music playing on the PA celebrating the deceased reggae guru.... i thought a little tribute to Robert Nesta might be in order, so i started off with "Waiting In Vain" and was quickly joined by a girl on shaker and a dude on djembe, and what do you know? The drummer was actually a drummer, and listened, and paid attention to my cues! Ah, things always go so much better with a real drummer.... Folks seemed to really appreciate the Wailers cover, so i gave them a little original with "2012", in which the drummer kept up beautifully with the fermatas, and ended off with "Georgia On My Mind", during which a saxophone player randomly popped up and blew a fun solo and backup! IT was simply mahvelous to have that kind of round-out to the set (and to that song in particular!), and i thanked the two other players profusely afterwards.... Tiffany said that IT was the happiest that she's seen me on this trip and encouraged me strongly that she feels that i'm supposed to be playing music, and that is what i'm meant to be doing....
The rest of the open mic had a bunch of really fun players and good music, and we had a great time listening to them all; Tiffany said IT may have been the best open mic she's ever been to!
We were sitting with two cool gay guys (Li Jing and Zhang Kun) at one of the tables in the back of the bar, who both expressed great love and admiration for my playing, and as we continued conversing with them, i discovered that Li Jing had been listening to the Grateful Dead for the past ten years since he was fifteen! We cuddled together, listening to "Attics Of My Life" on his tiny little phone speaker in the loud-ass bar.... How wonderful! i felt the gentle hands of Bob Epstein at work around our meeting, because how i could possibly meet a huge Deadhead in southwest China is so unlikely as to be almost ridiculous, yet here IT was happening! Thank you, Bob, for guiding me towards family even halfway around the world....
IT's Love: Master Faihi versus enraged white snake chick; The Fool forgetting his true love, Bat-boy saving the green snake - "Why is IT that every time i wake up, i'm next to you?"; Amitabha; Golden Spirit Dagger
"You are beautiful - We are ready for ready" - Kunminger's shirt
"Life is a zebra crossing" - Kunminger's shirt
"Every day of your life, live charmful" - Kunming shirt
IT's Love: Bat Demon shaking the canals of Lijiang; Underwater army of rats versus senior chanting Buddhist monks; "Use maximum protection!"; Snake-induced tsunami; Disciple Boy ready for demons with cymbals on his hands; Master Faihi triumphant on an underground lava rock; "You must be mistaking me for a gentleman," says the Fool; Evil spirits trapped in a circular portal; Inter-world marriage; Mom's fashionable rabbit-ears
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