Writers On Steroids

“Ok,” I said to the Senate Committee investigating Writers On Steroids in Room 2143 of the grand facade off Blue Jay Way.

They stared at me with jaundiced eyes. They shuffled paper. An old tottering fool of a Grand Inquisitor pounded his gavel. I remembered him from the McCarthy Era and feared the worst.

“You are accused of taking steroids to enhance your writing performance. We have evidence from editors, hacks and wan-ta-na-bees that you and perhaps thousands of your ilk slaving away like drones in the dungeons of mediocrity, dreams, illusions and journalistic heaven on word machines have boosted your word output through the use of banned, I repeat, banned substances. Say it isn’t so say its all a lie misconception hearsay. What say you?”

I took a drink of pure spring water from mysterious unfiltered Alaskan lakes. A naked trout started dancing on the table in front of me. I laughed. “Ha, you're joking aren't you?”

I stuttered, spitting water all over the microphone. It shorted out and I was forced to use my voice minus amplification.

“Of course I sue steroids, why, in fact, in truth of fact and fiction I sear the meat on your grill with my defamatory remarks. The pills are beautiful and come in a variety of colors, like rainbows. They open doors of perception with wonder shock and awe. I have irrefutable evidence that your committee grooved the approval of these pharmaceutical delights thanks to the huge financial contribution by multinational drug companies to keep you in office. It's well known this country, let alone sports heroes have been programmed to ingest chemicals.”

I jumped on the table with the naked trout and started yelling. “We are ALL filled with chemicals you idiots. It's the American way of life. It's the new mantra, Run, Read, Write with Greater Efficiency and Prose the Poem with diligence and fortitude using Elements of Style. It’s the style baby, the demolition charge under your hat, Jack.”

“Order, order,” yelled a bailiff approaching me with caution, mace and industrial strength handcuffs. “Down boy!”

They shackled me. The Grand Inquisitor handed down my sentence. It had a noun, verb and object.

“Take the prisoner to Cuba and give him an orange jump suit. Interrogate him and deprive him of his writes.”

I screamed in anguish as they dragged me past a pharmacy filled with promise, hope and salvation.

“You haven’t heard the last word from me. Where’s my trout?”

Travel slow in Burma. You're on the ride once.

The Language Company

Creative non-fiction. Journalistic facts. Literary imagination.

Lucky Foot taught English at The Language Company in Turkey in 2008. He returned in 2012. Collecting data. Field notes.

A Vietnam veteran, journalist and facilitator of courage he gifted luck to people in China, Turkey, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos beginning in 2004.

He showed up to sit for a spell nurturing positive relationships in the long now.

Accompanied by Humor and Curiosity he helped students speak English minus their illusions of fear and phobia's relatives:

Fear of taking a risk.

Fear of being incorrect.

Fear of peer ridicule.

Fear of poverty.

Fear of starvation.

Fear of being ordinary.

Fear of success.

Fear of abandoning a manuscript by Zeynep entitled TLC.

Fear of accepting responsibility for their choices and accepting the consequences.

Fear of letting go of old conditioning. Shadows.

Fear of being alive and real. Growing.

Fear of_______. (Your free choice)

Lucky, Humor and Curiosity observed parents, schools, religions and states fostering passive acceptance, fear, indifference and rote learning teacher-centered systems. It was all about passing exams, not learning how to be more human and think for yourself.

Status quo. Sheep mentality. Blend in. Questions are forbidden. Authority washes your brain daily.

Zeynep, his young genius friend in Bursa, Turkey taught him about life in her totalitarian country.

"As a literary outlaw I say what others are afraid to say. Anxiety is a chronic national problem. Adults here are good at two things, eating and fighting. 'Dissent is terrorism,' say our corrupt manikin authoritarian figurines."

Leo revealed dystopian China. "I spent years carrying word shit in a Re-education through Reform Labor Camp for questioning Authority. Everyone here belongs to the Big Ears, No Mouth society."

Oh the shame.

Rita, the independent author of Ice Girl in Banlung shared stories about her Khmer culture and Cambodian history. "We've had twenty years of hopelessness. We breed. We work. We get slaughtered. Poor people see education as a waste of time and money. I dream I am a free person in a free country."

A seven year-old Vientiane kid explained Laos. "I develop my authentic character with critical thinking skills, humor, gratitude, abundance, and wonder as a free thinking individual. I have my junior philosopher's badge."

"If you want to do great things you must take great risks and suffer greatly," said Zeynep. "You either let go or get dragged along."

Awareness. Mindfulness. Compassion.

"It's not about people buying this book," Rita said. "It's about people reading it."

The world is made of stories not atoms

I’m filled with wild passion.

A mind-expanding drug of curiosity, delight and freedom increases my awareness.

The eternal present is a long now.

My power is big medicine. It’s a sacred connection to Gaia after 60,000 years of paying attention to details.

I observe a spider meticulously wrapping an insect with thin microfilaments. Spider recycles her old web on the periphery. They haul it to a diamond center. It vibrates in a soft breeze.

Does the spider have any intention when building the web of catching the insect?

Does the flying insect have the intention of finding the web?

Where does instinct end and intention begin?

One instinct is to sit in meditation. Another instinct is to take risks.

To do great things you must take great risks and suffer greatly.

JUMP over the abyss.

My serenity is not purchased over the counter with pharmaceutical coupons. No dust collects on my mirror reflecting an elegant universe in my heart. In my expanded state I am a breath of fire, a lightning bolt sacrificing fear, doubt and uncertainty.

I shatter myth.

Lightning bleeds off my charge creating transformation.

I am an unemployed fortuneteller. I am ahead of the future. The day after tomorrow belongs to me.

I am a gravedigger/archaeologist. Soil is my groundwork. Look at my hands. I know two things. See good dirt under fingernails. I am the soft sand of sleep calming tortured hearts.

Abracadabra! My feminine nature hurls her lightning bolt even unto death. She is a death deferred. She is on death row with a short reprieve. My tranquility is a lethal injection of travel.

It’s 100 degrees in blistering sun. I work hard and fast pounding typewriter keys, digging graves, discovering artifacts.

I dust history off history. I destroy the present to discover the future.

I hammer keys in a new form of construction business. Before bits, bytes and gadgets.

The world is made of stories, not atoms.

Shovels plow archaeological deserts reflecting passion and curiosity. An archaeologist inside a tomb waving Diogenes’s lamp yells, “Every bit we dig out tells a little more about the story.” They unearth a story revealing communities, customs and cultures.

A digger explains how it works. “This stuff we roughly estimate is between 1,800 to 1,990 years old. We use a method called carbon dating. It measures the amount of carbon-14 remaining in ancient material.”

“What is it?”

“Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon found in all organic matter. Scientists determine the age of fossils and artifacts by comparing test results to an international standard. We’ll send it to a lab for analysis.”

“Beautiful. Let me know what you discover, what you learn.”

Tourists find. Travelers discover.

Explorers sift discoveries through mesh screens. A delicate camel hairbrush caresses historical fragments. They dig toward 8,000 well-rested Chinese terra-cotta warriors in battle formation standing ready for excavation.

Chariots, horses and supplies with trapped Mandarin survivor voices echo toward the surface causing vibrational shifts.

Confucian scholars join them. Buried since 210 B.C., guarding Qin Shi-huang-di, the first Emperor of China, their collective consciousness breath creates tremor waves near Xian, the capital of Imperial China.

Warriors stand silent on the edge of the Gobi desert along the Silk Road. Voices sing swirling word storms. They hear brushes shovels, earth moving equipment and hammering keys approach their hidden truth.

“They are coming for us,” said a warrior.

In my inner garden of crimson stimulus I tend wild roses. Nostrils scent sense.

I have a responsibility to the thorns.

Ice Girl in Banlung

  It’s fucking hysterical.

  Now and then mean the same in Ratanakiri, Cambodian animist jungle languages.

  Leo is incognito and invisible perusing the Wild West. It is replete with wandering literary outlaws, animists, shamans and 25,000 natives. Rambunctious young Banlung cowboys and cowgirls dance 125cc machines through spiraling red dust.

 How long have you been here, said Rita a 12-year old girl cutting and selling ice along a red road.

  All day. I started in China. I walked to Vietnam. Then Laos. I’ll stay here awhile. We can talk.

  Ok, she said cutting crystals. Is a day long enough to process a sensation and form an impression? Is it long enough to gather critical mass data about the diversity and evolution of humans in this total phenomena? My name is Rita.

  Good to meet you. I’m Leo the Lionhearted. Yes, if you slow down. How is life here?

  I work, I breed, I get slaughtered. This is my fate. My fate is a machete slashing through jungles. Fate and destiny are two sides of the same coin.  Janus.

Yeah, yeah are two of my favorite lazy words. She smiled. Especially when I am talking with illiterate zombies. They are same word. I spit them out twice at light speed. You accent the last consonant, drawing it out like a sigh, a final breath a whisper.

Y-e-a-hhhhh. It’s crazy English believe you me. Impressive, eh? I can also say OK twice with a rising sound on the k sounding like a meaning I understand without internal meaning or personal truth-value. It’s vague. Why be precise? Many people have conversations using abstract metaphors. Ok? Ok?

 Ok. Address the very low literacy rate.

  Hello, literacy rate, how are you, she said.

  I am well and speaking with improved elocution. My English is getting better. I know my English is not grammatically correct but I know my English is fluent. The more I see the less I know.

  Well said, said Ice Girl. Someone said literacy means reading and writing.

  I doubt it, said Literacy, Who needs reading and writing? Humans need food, sex, air, water, shelter, clothing and red dust. Hope is in last place. In fact, hope may be the greatest evil because it’s a myth. It’s the last thing that dies.

  Let’s not have this conversation in the abstract, said Ice Girl, sawing cold. I love myth, fiction, truth and inventing stories.

 I thought you said eating and fighting, said Literacy. You must be fucking crazy. My survival depends on eating and fighting. Reading and writing is for idiots. Millions never learn how to write, let alone scribble stories. No chance. No money. Poor people see education and school as a waste of time and money.

Education and medicine are expensive.

 I see, said Ice Girl. When I write my stories filled with immediate direct sense impressions and precise details they lose their magic. They are like ice. Ice loses its essence in the big picture. Existence precedes essence. It’s lost between heart-mind-hand-tool-paper. Spoken stories lose their edge fast. Spoken words float around looking for a character, like plot.

 Too many people talk out their stories. Lost in the telling. Lost tales float around looking for ears. Talking kills and rejuvenates magic and mystery. Ghost stories.

 World tribes memorize chants, rhythms, songs, tales and star trails with a side order of red dust. You never hear a kid say, Let’s take the day off and be creative.

 Here’s my secret. I look for a literary agent. Someone said they help writers. I sent one a query. One wrote me a letter. I will share it with you later. I write at night. During the day I’m busy with school and selling ice. If they ask me I will send them a manuscript. Maybe they will love it. Maybe they’ll find a publisher with a big marketing budget and the rest is history as they say. If not I’ll be independent and publish it myself. Ice is my life and I will never give it up. Besides writing, laughing, loving and living, it’s my life.

  Wow, that’s lovely, said Leo.

  Yes, she said, I follow my bliss. If it’s not in your heart, it’s not in your head. I’ll tell you about the agent later.

  A man arrived on a broken motorcycle. She gave him a blue plastic bag of ice. He gave her Real currency.

  Sure. I follow my blisters, laughed Leo.

  Where are you staying, she asked.

  I don’t have a home. I live in small houses along the road. For now I sleep at Future Bright.

  I know it. The woman owner smiles and lies at the same time.

 What’s the difference between hearing and listening, Leo asked?.

98% are asleep with their eyes open, she said. They don’t know and don’t care. It’s endemic.  They look without understanding. The remaining 2% are dead and long gone.

She opened her notebook. She spilled red ink on white paper. Red is a lucky color of wealth and prosperity. Living in a red dust town brings everyone good luck.

  Tell me about your visionary skills, said Leo.

  I am ahead of the future. The day after tomorrow belongs to me. I connect the dots forward. I practice detached discernment. My job is to pay attention to direct immediate experience, get it down and make sense of it later.

People here live in a perpetual disconnect. They are talking monkeys looking for a place to happen. They can’t focus. Their attention span is ZERO. Like Year 0 in 1975 before I was born. No attention span? No problem.

  How about your town, asked Leo.

 Red dust roads in Banlung are paved with blue Zircon and Black Opals (nill) reflecting Ratanakiri, or “Gem Mountain.” Rich city women wear blue Zircon, gold necklaces, rings, bracelets, sparkle bling. Rural women do not wear this wealth.

Married women wear red bead strings. They fashion yellow, red, blue, green, glittering plastic bangles on necks and wrists.

  Here it’s about food and honoring Earth spirits. Animists believe taking stones harms the spirits, creating an imbalance in the natural order of things.

  Thanks for Life Lesson #3, said Leo. I’m going to have a look-see. See you later.

Ice Girl in Banlung

Mandarin Duck, Cadiz, Spain

Omar remembered a daughter in Cadiz. Faith worked at Mandarin Duck selling paper and writing instruments. She practiced a calm stationary way.

“May I help you,” she said one morning greeting a bearded stranger. She knew he was a forcestero. His eyes linked their loneliness minus words. She averted her eyes. He was looking for quick painless intimacy and ink.

“I’d like a refill for this,” he said, unscrewing a purple cloud-writing instrument with a white peak.

Recognizing the Swiss rollerball writing tool she opened a cabinet and removed a boxes of thin and medium cartridges.

“One or many?” she said.

“Many. I don’t want to run dry in the middle of a simple true sentence.”

“I agree. There’s nothing more challenging than running empty while taking a line for a walk.”  

“Isn’t that the truth? Why run when you can walk? Are you a writer?”

“Isn’t everyone? I love watercolors, painting, drawing, sketching moistly.”

“Moistly?”

“I wet the paper first. It saturate colors with natural vibrancy.”

“With tears of joy or tears of sadness?”

“Depends on the sensation and the intensity of my feeling. What’s the difference? Tears are tears. The heart is a lonely courageous hunter.”

He twirled a peacock feather. Remembering Omar’s Mont Blanc 149 piston fountain pen, he said, “I also need a bottle of ink.”

“What color? We have black, blue, red. British racing green just came in.”

“Racing green! Cool. Hmm, let’s try it.” Omar would be pleased with this expedient color.

He switched subjects to seduce her with his silver tongue.

“Are you free after work? Perhaps we might share a drink and tapas? Perhaps a little mango tango?”

“I have other plans. I am not sexually repressed. I am liberated. I have a blind secret lover. Here you are,” she said handing him cartridges and inkbottle with a white mountain.

He paid with a handful of tears and a rose thorn. His ink stained fingers touched thin, fine and extra fine points of light. Faith and her extramarital merchandise were thin and beautiful. She was curious.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” she said. “How old are you?”

“Older than yesterday and younger than tomorrow.”

“I see.”

“It was nice meeting you. By the way, have you seen the film, Pan’s Labyrinth, written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro?”

“No, but I’ve heard about it. Something about our Civil War in 1944, repression and a young girl’s fantasy.”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s really a beautiful film on many levels. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.”

“Wow,” she said, “I loved that film, especially when Alice meets the Mad Hatter. Poor rabbit, always in a hurry, looking at his watch.”

“Funny you should mention time. A watch plays a small yet significant role in the Pan film.”

“Really? How ironic. I’ll have to see it.”

“Yes, it’ll be good for your spirit.”

He pulled out a Swizz Whizz Army stainless steel, water resistant Victoriabnoxious pocket watch.

“My, look at the time! Tick-tock. Gotta walk. Thanks for the ink. Create with passion.” He disappeared.

Faith sang a lonely echo. “Thanks. Enjoy your word pearls. Safe travels.”

Under the Banyan tree he sat on a park bench in weak sun, fed cartridges into a mirror and clicked off the safety. It was a rock n’ roll manifesto with a touch of razzmatazz jazz featuring Coltrane, Miles, Monk, Mingus and Getz to the verb.

A Century is Nothing