Horseshoe Basin

Cold, wet, windy, snowy, hot, sunny, beautiful and deeply satisfying. Our little piece of heaven in the Pasayten Wilderness.

PNW Almanac

9-19-19: 40 F at the Irongate Trailhead at noon. 1.5 hours northwest of Tonasket. Last 5.7 miles on a brutal road with patches of snow. Hiked 7.9 miles through 2006 Tripod fire, going over Sunny Pass to Smith Lake, where we set camp in the snow at around 5pm. Larches starting to get that golden hue. Not peaking quite yet. Cold, wet, windy, and rainy night.

9-20-19. Left camp at 10am. Stayed in tent in the morning because of rain, heavy at times, and wind. Knew weather was opening when we heard birds and chipmunks starting their days. Hiked 10 miles from Smith Lake to Haig Mountain, a horse camp. Weather changing all day, but mostly improving. Scrambled to a vista on Haig Mountain. Elevation: 7800 feet. The camp was nice but exposed and no obvious water source. Had we known the weather was going to be exquisite the following day, we should have looked more for a camp and made an attempt at Teapot Dome. There were some camps/water a mile or two before Haig Mountain Horse Camp. Camped behind Rock Mountain, around the corner from Louden Lake. Elevation = 7000 feet. This was an A++ campsite. Protected, spectacular views, owl hooting at night (most likely a great-horned owl), surrounded by larches turning color.

9-21-19 Spectacular morning and a day that got close to the 80s, even at 7000-8500 feet where we ended up. We walked from our campsite to Sunny Pass, where we dropped our packs and majority of our gear, other than water, then descended 700 feet and then rising again another 1000 feet to the Windy Peak Trail's junction with Chewack River trail. Spectacular views. We decided that we would make an attempt at summiting Windy Peak on a cooler day with even less stuff to carry and a smarter campsite, maybe Sunny Pass. 13 miles. Came back to Trailhead. Temp was 50 F at 5pm.

3 days, 31 miles.

Soundtrack: 6-22-73, Vancouver. Like the hike, long, exhausting, but deeply satisfying. with spacey, jazzy,  explorative versions of Bird Song, Here Comes Sunshine, China->Rider, Black Peter, Truckin'>Other One.

Canyon Lake Community Forest

7-14-19. Canyon Lake Community Forest.

68-72 F.

10:40am left house.

11:20am left car at gate.

12:35pm, left bike hidden in forest a quarter mile beyond trailhead.

3pm-ish. Made it to Old Growth Trail. Prehistoric trees from the mini ice age over 1000 years ago. 3:45pm--Ridgeview at 4000 feet. Views of Mount Baker (in the clouds) and the Twin Sisters.

4pm Left. Went wrong way, backtracked 1/3rd of a mile.

5:48pm Made it back to bike with a banana slug on it.

6:25pm Made it back to car after 7 miles of hiking and 10-ish miles of biking logging road.

7:12pm, made it to the North Fork Beer Shrine for a well deserved porter and pizza. Soundtrack: 11/30 and 12/2/73. Pinnacle space jams.

Pacific Northwest '73-74 Complete Recordings

I got the Grateful Dead's Pacific Northwest '73-'74 Complete Recordings  box set because I love the time period for the Dead ('73-74) and I also live in the Pacific Northwest.

The box set includes the following shows:

6/22/73 Vancouver
6/24/73 Portland
6/26/73 Seattle

5/17/74 Vancouver
5/19/74 Portland
5/21/74 Seattle

The box and artwork for the Complete Recordings are truly spectacular and a joy to have in the living room if you're into the native Pacific Northwest artwork. Great job First Nations artist Roy Henry Vickers!

 The included essay in the box set doesn't have much of anything that interesting that an avid fan wouldn't already know, but worth a read for a few more details that might have slipped by. I still am wondering why, if they were hauling the expensive-to-haul Wall of Sound using multiple 18-wheelers during a time with increasing gas prices, they played in the following order (Vancouver-Portland-Seattle). Both in '73 and '74. Seems inefficient and I was hoping that somebody in the included booklet essay would shed light on that poor logistics decision (made twice). But alas...

I also got the Complete Recordings because I already had the 5/19/74 Portland and the 6/22/73 Vancouver shows easily in my top 50 of Dead shows that I have heard through the archive.org open access recordings, and it's nice to have these 2 shows on a hard copy in their re-mastered glory. Both of these shows shine with wonderful energy from start to finish and should be in the Dead canon forever. 

For me the whole show is a highlight, but others have mentioned highlights from the '73 Vancouver show, like the "Bird Song"--a mellow, meditative, jazzy, vampy 14-minute beauty. Not my favorite version (prefer 8/27/72 or 9/21/72), but the jazz-y meditative version here is different and a pleasure to hear in its remastered glory and certainly a top 5 version and a must-listen for fans of the era and song and jazzy Dead.

I play "Black Peter" on my mandolin and playing/singing it has made me realize that it's one of Garcia-Hunter's best songs ever written. The chord progressions, the lyrics, the way it flows and comes together are some of the best things Garcia-Hunter ever did. The C chords in the bridge hit like a gut shot. It’s so suggestive, tailor-made for Garcia and his voice, and feels prophetic, yet can be interpreted in a number of ways. The “Black Peters” from this era (late ’72-early ’73) are spectacular and this version is no exception. Love it!!! I also love that when you listen with headphones, you can hear the crowd loudly proclaim “Long Live the Grateful Dead” as the song is beginning—a little detail that makes me giggle with glee.

The 18-minute Playin' is really good, too. Several commenters have noted that the Dead tease, hint at, or foreshadow "Fire on the Mountain," a song that they wouldn't officially write/record for another few years, at around the 7-minute mark in the jam. Yes, the jam goes to many worlds, even to songs they hadn't written yet.

Also from this show is a wonderful 60-minute marathon medley starting with He’s Gone > Truckin’> The Other One>Wharf Rat. The long, spacey sandwich of this medley in between Truckin’ and The Other One goes through some insanely spectacular worlds and spaces, starting with a Phil solo that molds into a groove established with Billy and then once the rest of the band coalesces around this groove, it goes further and further out there. Quintessential ’73 Dead Space Jazz. Once we get to the Wharf Rat, we’ve achieved nirvana. As a jazzer and for all those others who love the ’73 Dead Space Jazz sound, this is wonderful stuff! It doesn’t get too dark and hairy (a brief minute or two) and that dark hairiness only makes the transcendence better, right?

The ’74 Portland show shines with that sunny Dead energy from start to finish. It includes a top 5 “Truckin’” for me and the 10-minute jam after it truly goes to wild places. A must-listen for any head. The “China Cat” and its transition into “I Know You Rider” are certainly required listening, too. One of my top 5 renditions of this one-two punch. Unfortunately, we lose the vocals on 4 songs from the first set. Sound problems that were not uncommon from recordings from ’74.  But other highlights include a nice “Mississippi…” opener, a beautiful “Peggy-O,” and a loose “Loose Lucy.” This “Loose Lucy” is my favorite version. Though I can’t call myself a “Loose Lucy” scholar, it’s  the second loosest of all the versions I’ve heard with the 11/11/73 taking the prize.

Okay, but what about the other shows? I wouldn’t call the other shows in the Complete Recordings A+ material like the ’73 Vancouver and ’74 Portland shows, but if you’re a deadicated head, you might want to consider the following:

The ’73 Portland show is another sunny energy show with minimal flaws. Nobody mentions the “Dark Star,” but I will. It’s a 27-minute Dark Star “Lite” which is actually quite pleasant. Definitely worth a listen. It exits into a nice “Eyes.” This sequence isn’t as good as the 11/11/73 “Dark Star”> “Eyes,” my favorite Dark Star>Eyes. But the Portland version here is nothing to sneeze at.

The 6-26-73 Seattle show has what I’d call a very mediocre first set (C- at best). It’s mediocre for the energy and sound quality. During this time period, it feels like they were a little lazy monitoring levels (this ain’t a Betty Board, folks), especially in the first sets. It also sounds like Jerry’s amp is tired. Either Jerry’s asleep or his amp isn’t sounding right or something…But then we get to the “Playing In The Band” to close the first set. If you are a Phil fan, this Playin' is required listening. He goes bananas and carries the band. You can literally hear a woman in the first row having a “music-gasm”—she is screaming with joy, going nuts on the landing after a spectacular Phil jam. And rightfully so. Like this screaming woman, I was quite pleased.

There’s an oft repeated refrain that the Dead’s first sets were just warm-up sets,  not as important as the second sets, where all the magic happens, and I find this maxim especially true in '73. And this Seattle show is a clear example. (I can see why partisan of late 80s shows have their reasons for preferring that time period as both sets could be both important and good.)

But the second set of this 6-26-73 Seattle show really makes up for the lackluster first set. If Jerry was asleep in the first set, somebody fixed his amp and passed him some kind, kind stuff and he is firing on all cylinders. Right out of the gate, Bertha> Promised Land shreds. They Love Each Other is the bounciest version I’ve ever heard—Jerry slays vocally, too. The Big River, like most from this era, is just a Garcia-Weir guitar clinic on how to play honky tonk country guitar. The interplay between them and Billy’s perfect shuffle is just off the charts here for those who love Country Dead. Billy has got to be one of the most underrated and subtle jazz drummers.

The “Here Comes Sunshine” isn’t as good as the Vancouver show or nearly as good as the 12-19-73 version (the greatest “Sunshine” ever), but it’s still worth a listen. The meat of the set “He’s Gone”>Truckin’>The Other One (sandwiched by Me and Bobby McGee) isn’t as long as other marathon medleys but makes up for it in inventiveness. Starting with a satisfying “He’s Gone”—if  it were any more laid back, they’d fall over, it turns on a dime to “Truckin’,” a reminder that my favorite era of Jerry’s guitars was the Alligator era—his ’57 Fender Strat just has a smooth country honky tonk blues feel with a knife edge to the belly when he needed it. “The Other One” is very much another space jazz version, very jazzy at the beginning and then goes to deep, disturbing and scary space at the end of the reprise—last couple of minutes, almost too out there, Phil, dude, relax.

Let’s move on to the other ’74 shows. The 5/17/74 Vancouver show overall is a C effort. I think the band is still getting used to the power of the Wall of Sound. You can feel its power and potential, but they haven’t learned to wield the power of the Wall of Sound yet. (I have a long-winded description of the Wall of Sound here.) 

If 5/17/74 is lackluster, there are still 2 noteworthy songs from the show. For me, I prefer ’72 and ’73 versions of the Playin' in the Band—it just doesn’t get much better than that. But the Playin' here is just pure psychedelia. Phil is having so much fun exploring and you can hear it. This is my favorite Playin' from ’74 and nobody mentions it. So I will. It’s a thousand times better than the Seattle 46-minute version from a few days later that is frequently cited. Which in my mind is a complete waste. The 46-minute Playin' from Seattle is a clear example of longest version does not = best version—the band is meandering and lost through a good portion of those 46 minutes. Believe me, I love long, meandering jams that teeter into being lost, but the 46-minute Seattle Playin' isn’t a thousandth as good as this 5/17 Vancouver Playin', which should be required listening for Phil Phans! The other must-listen from Vancouver ’74 is the Eyes of the World. It's difficult to find bad versions of Eyes in the '73-'74 glory years, and this version is nice and crisp with great energy.

Vancouver

That being said, the 5/21/74 Seattle show, like the second set of the 6/26/73 Seattle show is an underrated gem with the exception of the meandering Playin', which really should be listened to once for fans of the era and the song.  Overall show is a solid B+ and the “Weather Report Suite,” (this tune, like Eyes, was always a gem in the era), might even have something more, even better than other ’74 versions, and might be my new favorite version. Peak song in a peak era, and this Seattle version is very tasty. Other highlights include “Brown-Eyed Women,” and a nice “Stella Blue.” The “Row Jimmy” is nice, too—it’s just such a mellow, laid-back, subtle song. Overall, good show.

In general, I find the ’73 shows on this collection more satisfying than the ’74 shows. 5/19/74 is beautiful and if there weren't 4 songs with missing vocals, I'd deem it perfect. But all three ’73 shows have their merits—6/22/73 is canonical, 6/24/73 is a perfect selection for a mellow sunny day and the second set of 6/26/73 is a scorcher.

In ’74, they spent the beginning of the year (these shows, really) learning to wield the power of the Wall of Sound. And the latter part of year being burnt out by the Wall. The sweet spot happens in the middle of the year with 6/26 and 6/28/74, captured on Dick’s Picks 12, my personal favorite recording from this year.  Best “China Cat Sunflower”> “I Know You Rider,” a deep spacey “Spanish Jam,” and a 28-minute jam out of “Weather Report Suite” that might be some of the finest live improvisational music ever recorded. We get the potential for that sort of playing with 5/19/74, the jam out of “Truckin’” is something else entirely and also otherworldly good. How they were feeling and playing so tight is beyond me.

Phil, throughout this Pacific Northwest collection, is 5 stars. This is a time when Phil is just so excited about the sounds he’s getting through the sound system and the avant garde space jazz the Dead were leaning to at this time fits him perfectly. His sounds blurs between a deep, woody jazz bass and what I call a stretchy “bubble  yum” bass. Listen to it—it’s like he’s stretching a piece of bubble yum bubble gum with his bass—truly one of the more original rock n’ roll bass players and my personal favorite. 

Phil is my gateway to the Grateful Dead and if you're a fan of his playing, this box set is for you. At 16, I was playing baritone sax in the high school jazz band, but I was wishing I were playing the bass. A bass player like a combination of Jimmy Garrison (John Coltrane Quartet), Geddy Lee (Rush), and Les Claypool (Primus). I also didn't realize it but I was a country folky in the making, so when I heard Phil (my jazz roots) and Bobby and Jerry (my budding country interest) play together in the Dead I knew I had found my band.

Keith has a lot of 5 star moments and this collection is a reminder of how good he was and how much he defined the sound of all ‘70s Dead. His move to different sounds with the Rhodes keyboard changed the sound of the band.

Ensemble playing, which is what it’s all really about, really only reaches 5 stars on the 6/22/73 Vancouver show, the 5/19/74 Portland show, and maybe the second set of 6/26/73 Seattle, a scorcher at times.

The entire band is in such a creative peak, starting in late '69 with their work on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty and this peak continues through about m late '74. Garcia and Hunter were peaking so hard that they had a hard time getting all of the music they were writing recorded in a studio. There is an album's worth of classics that only appear in concerts--the band was too busy playing live and being on the road.

Phil, in particular, begins quite a peak in October '71 when Keith joined the band. I just recently listened to The Other One on 10-22-71 and you can tell that Phil is so happy to have a jazzy piano player with tremendous chops. It's just Keith's third show, but the chemistry is there. We reach Phil's peak of peaks in this time slot represented in this box set between these '73 shows and the end of '74.Phil's the one leading the charges on the jams. In '72 and '77, it was Jerry leading the majority of the jams, which may or may not be why '72 and '77 may or may not be the Dead's best years by a nose (I love all of these years, so I can't say). Either way, the band is at its true best when it's the ensemble leading the charges in the jams, and this happens on the A+ shows here, particularly 6/22/73 and 5/19/74.

So, overall, I give the Complete Recordings a 4 stars. A solid B+. Another reason to not give 5 stars is the sound. There is a sound to all Dead recordings from ’73 and ’74 that is a tad bothersome to me. I’ll try to explain…don’t get me wrong, I love this era and the clarity and the separation of each instrument is beyond belief, especially for the ’74 shows, and for jazzers like me, I can’t get enough of the music and the sound from this era, but as others have noted, the vocals have a weak, tinny sound in comparison. It’s just the way the shows were originally recorded. The recordings from this era can also be on the sterile side. While I was going through the box set, I re-visited a show from the Complete Europe ’72 box set and Betty and the Wizard just did a just exactly perfect recording of these ’72 shows—they just feel alive, they’re big and airy, and you feel like you’re on the stage right behind Weir. Truly my favorite box set. These ’73-74 recordings sound a tad sterile in comparison. The re-mastery here on these Pac Northwest discs is great, though. Like I would say…that if you like ’73, go listen to 11-11-73 or 12-19-73, both of which are canonical musically speaking, but the Dick’s Picks 1 on which you can find 12-19-73 released commercially, has poor re-mastery and it’s just kinda weak in sound with a fair amount of hiss and dead air. In my dream of dreams, they’d do a re-mastery of 12-19-73 or officially release the night before 12-18-73 (Dave Lemieux, you listening?), which is almost as good as 12-19-73.

'74 Wall of Sound. Vancouver. 

My Definitive Grateful Dead Shows

My Definitive Grateful Dead shows in no particular order, other than when they came to my head.

Criteria = that combination of musicianship, energy, and x factor (that je ne sais quoi of special feeling created by the symbiosis of band, audience, and venue).

I also evaluated on show recording quality. I lean heavily toward Betty Boards or recordings that Betty was involved in (i.e., the '72 Europe shows). I love the big, breathy quality of Betty's recordings. Listening to her recordings with headphones, you truly feel like you're standing on the stage right about where Bob Weir typically played.

5-26-72
11-6-77
7-8-78
6-9-77
11-11-73
12-31-72
6-22-73
11-17-73
4-16-72
4-26-72
5-10-72
5-11-72
5-3-72
5-4-72
9-21-72
5-8-70
11-17-71
5-19-74
8-6-74
6-26-74
12-19-73
8-25-72
9-18-87
7-7-89
2-27-69
9-24-72

Okay, admittedly I lean heavy on '72. Like a fine wine, '72 is that perfect mix of mellow, subtle, complex, full character, maturity but with authentic youthful spirit.

Music is everything.

"Verbal communication is open to interpretation, just like the songs are. I’ve prefaced interviews in the past saying that I can’t do anything but lie. All talk is lying, and I’m lying now. And that’s true, too. Go hear me play. That’s me – that’s what I have to say. That’s the form my thoughts have taken."

"The music is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument."

Jerry Garcia, on music

25 Principles of Adult Behavior and The Art of Being Alive

The more famous songwriting pair in the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, offer a lot of life lessons in the songs they wrote. Their songs are easier for me to play on the mandolin and if we still exist their simple beauty will inspire beings 500 years from now. 

But I've always been a huge fan of the "other" songwriting pair in the Dead, Bob Weir and John Perry Barlow. 

The two pieces I share below, one by Barlow and one by Weir, illustrate some very important fundamentals about being alive in this day and age, and sum up a lot of my own life philosophy. 

Barlow wrote songs with Bob Weir, but he was also a Wyoming rancher and a founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation and you could call him one of the early Internet pioneers. May he rest in peace. I'm looking forward to reading his memoirs Mother American Night.

It is now my goal to be the Bob Weir of mandolin. His songs are very tricky rhythmically and I don't have any under my belt. Besides being the most unique rhythm guitarist that ever lived, the McCoy Tyner to Jerry's Coltrane,  Bobby Weir's letter to a timber baron below is a another reason for why he is near the top of my pantheon of heroes. Not just because I share with Weir a deep love of forests, but his letter perfectly describes the art of being alive and Life itself. It is a defense of life. It appears in this day and age that our politicians and the robber barons of our gilded age are completely incapable of experiencing beauty and love--they appear to be robbed of a soul or life itself. They may have all of the money in the world, but they don't appear capable of even knowing what beauty, art or love are, and for that I truly feel sorry for them. 

John Perry Barlow's 25 Principles of Adult Behavior:

1. Be patient. No matter what.
2. Don’t badmouth: Assign responsibility, not blame. Say nothing of another you wouldn’t say to him.
3. Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you.
4. Expand your sense of the possible.
5. Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
6. Expect no more of anyone than you can deliver yourself.
7. Tolerate ambiguity.
8. Laugh at yourself frequently.
9. Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.
10. Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.
11. Give up blood sports.
12. Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Don’t risk it frivolously.
13. Never lie to anyone for any reason. (Lies of omission are sometimes exempt.)
14. Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
15. Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.
16. Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun.
17. Praise at least as often as you disparage.
18. Admit your errors freely and soon.
19. Become less suspicious of joy.
20. Understand humility.
21. Remember that love forgives everything.
22. Foster dignity.
23. Live memorably.
24. Love yourself.
25. Endure.

Below is Bob Weir's 1996 letter to Charles Hurwitz, CEO of Maxxam Corp., then part owner of the Headwaters Forest, at the time the largest stand of unprotected ancient redwoods on Earth. Eventually, 7,472 acres of it became the Headwaters Forest Preserve. 

"Dear Mr. Hurwitz:

Maybe 30 years ago, I was on one of my first band tours. We were in the Pacific Northwest, between somewhere in Washington and some other where in Oregon. The road took us to the lip on a ridge, from where we could see around us for many miles in all directions. To the west, we could see a weather front moving high clouds in from the Pacific. To the north and south, where the front came parallel with us, we could see a mist rising up from the forested foothills all around us, and when this mist joined with and seeded the clouds passing overhead it turned to rain and snow, which then fell on the mountains to our east. Scientists call this regular phenomenon evapo-transpiration. I wish you could have seen it.

It was breathtaking to behold, but as we watched, we had a firm realization that we were witnessing something even more beautiful than our eyes could ever take in. We saw how the rain falls to Earth, where it mixes with sun, soil and air; and there rises the grandest of all life forms - the forest, awesome in its size and complexity. the forest, in turn, holds the moisture until the next storm front comes through, when again the mist will rise, the clouds will seed, and rain will fall. Life causes life. Heaven and Earth dance in this way endlessly, and their child is the forest.

And so there we were, epiphanously watching that grandest and most glorious dance of life - of which we are just a tiny part - awed by a magnificence without beginning, without end...

Until a couple of years later, when we were making the same trip, and we came to the same place, but the forest was gone; now the land lay bare. The same weather patterns move through, but now no mist rises up to seed the clouds, and the rain no longer falls so much on the mountains to the east. I was still pretty young, but it seemed altogether wrong to me that we should destroy something so big, so far beyond our understanding. What unimaginable arrogance!

I also realized then and there that weather is a life form as well. So is the Earth. Our culture tends to overlook this because they are far too big to understand or control, but our Native American forbears knew quite well when they turned their gaze to the sky that they were looking at the face of God. They knew that below their feet lay the mother-goddess Earth. They knew that heaven and Earth are our grandparents, and that we are children of the forest; it was there our species originated.

Now you own, and intend to destroy, the last and best of these ancient forests. Like Shakespeare's Shylock, you have a legal right to extract your pound of our mother's flesh, in board feet. But the legality doesn't make it right; not nearly. This policy toward our environment is disastrous. And so, we the people of the society you live among, must call on you to stop this practice. Can you hear us?

Do the right thing. Sell to the American people the 60,000 acres that make up a sustainable, viable forest at a reasonable price, or just give it to us. You can afford it, even benefit by it. The goodwill you'll generate from such an act will come back to you many times over.

Perhaps you should go and sit for a while in one of your clear-cuts, and think this over as you listen to the desolate sound of the wind as it blusters unhindered past your ears, bereft of the trees that once tamed it. Then go and spend some time in the magnificence of the ancient forest you plan to destroy and perhaps you will hear that voice much older, wiser, deeper and gentler than ours - it's there.

I hope to hear back from you soon on this.

Respectfully, Bob Weir"

Deconstructed Roads

Wells Creek Road leads to one of the most spectacular hikes I know. The Cougar Divide. If you could handle the vertigo-inducing drive up one of the most damaged roads in a state full of damaged roads and you can find your way on the trail that remains under snow for about 11 months a year, your path could lead to a scree slope that puts you up on Mt. Baker. You feel like you can touch the top of the volcano. On an attempt we made in October a few years ago (we couldn't quite make it to the scree slope that time), we drove back in the most spectacular evening autumn light, which I remember as possibly the most beautiful light I'd ever seen that made its way over hundreds of acres of virgin forest, glaciers. Experiencing that October light on Wells Creek Road (regretfully I don't have pictures from the drive down--I was driving! And now I wish I had stopped to snap one) was one of the most iconic Pacific Northwest experiences I've ever had.

It saddened me to learn that Wells Creek Road is now unpassable. Deconstructed. Though looking at the Forest Service website, it is scheduled to be worked on in 2018, judging by our recent visit I doubt that they will be able to fix it without spending millions of dollars. And I'm not sure if they're going to find the reconstruction work worth it, as it's only a handful of crazy hikers and hunters that make it out that far. But to me Wells Creek Road is priceless.

The road is just so wild...

One of my favorite hikes just on the road was on one of those ultra-cold, ultra-clear days in the middle of the winter here. The mountain, the air, the glacial river were just so crystal clear. When we got back to the car, the thermometer read something like 8 degrees, which is pretty cold for this part of the world. Yet we were warmed by that beautiful hike on the road.

I have fond memories of my dogs chasing a black bear in the spring when you're more apt to run into them. And another memory of walking along and suddenly finding ourselves surrounded by fresh bear scat. Both the dogs had that nervous look of just knowing...we made a beeline back to the car, not needing to repeat a potential bear chase.

Our latest visit on bikes did not disappoint either. We took Marcos, who in his senior days, spent part of the day in his Beariot Comfort Wagon for bikes. And my mind was blown by this wildcat beekeeping operation. And the deconstructed road with washouts and gaping cracks split by creeks that weren't there before.

I've read somewhere that there are enough miles of logging roads in the United States to go the moon and back several times. There are so many of them that are just remnants. Deconstructed. Like a text analyzed by Derrida. Wells Creek Road is one of those deconstructed roads leading to places that hopefully might not ever be touched by humans again.

I might not ever muster the strength to ride my bike all the way up Wells Creek Road to the Cougar Divide trailhead to walk that extraordinary hike ever again, but at least I can dream about it.

Council of the Tree on the Cougar Divide trail. Cougar Divide. The road to the top is not good and the trail itself is unmaintained, but persistence yields magical landscapes and a visual feast, from Baker's glaciated slopes to Table Mountain, the High Divide, and the Canadian peaks. When bathed in late-fall sunlight, the spot is incomparably beautiful.Look at the details in the rocks in the background, David's double-hatting, the spooky green of the grass, Lu's penchant for adventure, Petra's deep thought, the incredibly long tree, and the adventure vest in full effect.

Making our way around a pretty sizable washout on Wells Creek Road. I'm carrying the Beariot here, so we can continue riding our bikes down the path. 

Wildcat beekeeping operation. Most likely taking advantage of the fireweed all over the place. 

Birdsong

"Laugh in the sunshine
Sing
Cry in the dark
Fly
Through the night"

--Hunter/Garcia

ICYMI...The USA is now a banana republic

5-25-72 and Lu

I've got a new appreciation for 5-25-72.

No, it's not the best show on the Grateful Dead's Europe '72 tour. Not top 5, maybe not even top 10 for some fans of the 22 shows of the glorious tour. It's during the last 4 nights at the Lyceum, which would definitely be tops on my list for time travel--should some day I could go to the 4 nights in London from 5-22 to 5-26-72, I would go with bells on to see the Dead at their peak in such a great venue. But everybody (rightfully) dwells on 5-26-72, which is just about as good as it gets and we forget about 5-24 and 5-25, which I sort of re-discovered.

The show starts with a relatively new song to the repertoire, a cover of Chuck Berry's "Promised Land," which has some false starts and a missed ending, but shows some promise. The bones are there for a song that will stay in the routine for decades, and the poor ending is just chalked up to the Dead always learning a tune in front of an audience.

The second set jam suite has some poor transitions: "Uncle John's Band">"Wharf Rat" is indecisive. The move between "Wharf Rat"  and "Dark Star" is forced. The "Dark Star">"Sugar Magnolia" takes 2 attempts from Bobby to spur the rest of the band into the pure rock n' roll of "Sugar Mag."

But the "Uncle John's Band" is the best of the tour. The "Wharf Rat" the most emotional. The "Dark Star" could be the most exploratory with many passages driven hard and really far out. A "Feelin' Groovy" passage in the middle that lasts a while with Bobby then pasting rubber ducky decals to the tiles with his spaced-out guitar. Let's just say it...it's extremely psychedelic.

But it was the buddy songs that got me.

I re-visited this show after receiving the news that my rescue dog Lu has several metastatic tumors. Cancer. Prognosis = "poor." And "survival is likely to be less than a few months." Shitty news. I was devastated.

But the next day, after the diagnosis, it was extremely sunny after a long spell of cloudy days here in one of the darkest places on the planet. I took Lu and her best friend Mar out for an adventure and 5-25-72 just serendipitously happened to be the soundtrack. It just was what I had in the CD player on my RAV.

It truly was the buddy songs that got me during this listen, together with Lu and Mar, Kirsten out running a race in Seattle, the dogs and I just needed some buddy time. The "Jack Straw" focused. The opening lines have always rang true for me as the definition of friendship: "We can share..." It truly is the essence of Friend. Kris Kristoferson's "Me and Bobby McGee," a song about a traveling pair, hitching the backroads of the USA, made me think of Me and Lu. So good it hurt. On the "I Know You Rider," when they sang "I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone," it really put a gulp in my throat.

A "Big Boss Man" delivered by Pigpen that just cuts to the soul also resonated with me. When Pig sings, "You ain't that big...you just tall that's just about all," it made me think of Lu, who is so tiny, but is so, so huge, just so huge in spirit.

Kirsten and I've always seen Lu and Pigpen as kindred souls. Rough and tough exterior, aloof and indifferent to phoniness; but extremely sweet on the inside. That's Lu and Pig. Lu would be so keen on Pig if they were together in the same room. Lu projects that same toughness and aloofness, but when you know her, when you really take the time to know her, it's the sweetness that sticks. And that's Pig, too.

Pigpen. Tough exterior, sweet inside.

Lu. Tough exterior, sweet inside.

And listening to 5-25-72, probably Pig's last great show before he died, like Lu's swan song, makes me want to re-visit other Pig gems. God, when Pig was on, he was just so on. He did not live life in half-measures. It was balls to the wall or nothing. And that was his music. And that's Lu, too.

12-6-71 came in the mail, also serendipitously, just the other day. Also, a wonderful Pigpen show. A "Smokestack Lightning" that is deep, raw, real. Perfect for Lu. Tough on the exterior. Soft and sweet inside. The music. The vibe. The heart and soul.

What I love about Pigpen and also Lu is that they were/are the heart and soul of what they did. Neither were perfect, but they're the only ones who do what they do. True originals.  As Bill Graham said of the Dead, which perfectly fits Pigpen, their heart and soul: "They're not the best at what they do; they're the only ones that do what they do." Pig gave his all to the Grateful Dead. Lu gave everything she had for the Adventure Buddies. Neither Lu nor Pig were/are innately talented. But both were/are great because they put everything in--their heart, their soul, and everything that they were.

Time doesn't heal wounds...

Time doesn't heal wounds, but it gives you a certain perspective, a vantage point by which to see reality.

READ

Today's TV news can best be summarized as follows:

Empty Suit 1: I'M RIGHT. YOU'RE WRONG!
Empty Suit 2: NOOOOOO....I'M RIGHT. YOU'RE WRONG!
Token Minority or female: Well...actually...
Moderator: You've got 10 seconds to prove why Empty Suit 1 is wrong.
Empty Suit 1: I'M THE RIGHTEST!!!!!!!

[Commercial Break]
Deep Voice: Buy Now! Call 1-800-Buy-Useless-Shit. Now. Or you'll lose this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

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It's no wonder we seem like such a divided country. Our news is a shouting match reality TV show and it's also no wonder that our current President's only success has been as a reality TV star. I actually don't think we're nearly as divided as the media portrays us to be. Of course, the division sells. Creating false controversy wins eyeballs, which is the name of the game in our (dis)Information Age.

Still the media by which most people get information is predicated on being RIGHT-ER than anybody else. It's a zero-sum game. There's zero room for nuance. All you have to do is shout louder than the other guy.

The information they give you is designed to tell you what to think rather than how to think.

This is why I like our library.

I realized that I'm deluged with information...most of it poor information as cited above. The only way I can remember the good stuff is to write it down with a good old fashioned pencil and paper.

So I made a reading list of print books I've read over the past year and a half or so. And have come across quotes like the following, which is a gem for this day: "Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends." -Maya Angelou, poet (4 Apr 1928-2014)

Granted, I'm a slow reader and I'm quick to quit books that I'm not getting into. But I've accumulated a pretty good reading list since I started writing this stuff down:

Dance Dance Dance Murakami

Putas Asesinas, Bolaño

All the King’s Men--Robert Penn Warren

Never Let Me Go--Ishiguro

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Biographical Novel of Michelangelo--Irving Stone

Da Vinci Code--Dan Brown

The World Without Us--Alan Weisman

“Without us, Earth will abide and endure; without her, however, we could not even be.”

The Year of Magical Thinking--Joan Didion

Covered Waters--Joseph Heywood

The 40-Fathom Bank, Les Galloway

The Boys in the Boat

Beyond the 100th Meridian: John Wesley Powell Biography, Stegner

Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey

House of Owls, Tony Angell

Anatomy of a Murder, Robert Traver

All the Wild that Remains: Abbey and Stegner, Gressner

Winter Brothers: A Season at the Edge of America, Ivan Doig:

Wild Idea: Buffalo and Family in a Difficult Land; Dan O’Brien

Gods and Generals, Jeff Shaara

Juan de Fuca’s Strait, Gough

My journey to Lhasa, Alexandra David Neel

Lord of the Flies, William Golding

The Spirit Catches you and You Fall Down

El año de Gracia, Cristina Fernández Cubas

Cannery Row--John Steinbeck

The Goldfinch Donna Tartt

Leaving Alaska by Grant Sims

In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick

Great Expectations, Dickens

When We Were Orphans, Ishiguro

The Little Friend, Donna Tartt, Here's a nugget of a quote on page 146 that explains 240+ years on this land:

“You would think that Negroes and poor whites would not hate each other the way they did since they had a lot in common--mainly, being poor. But sorry white people had only Negroes to look down upon. They could not bear the idea that the Negroes were now just as good as they were and in many cases, far more prosperous and respectable. ‘A poor Negro has at least the excuse of his birth,’ Edie said. ‘The poor white has nothing to blame for his station but his own laziness and sorry behavior. No, he’d much rather stomp around burning crosses and blaming the Negro for everything than go out and try to get an education or improve himself in any way.”

The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks

Sputnik Sweetheart, Murakami

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace From the Sea Yukio Mishima

Seveneves Neal Stephenson

Bel Canto Ann Patchett

The Island Within by Richard Nelson

Our Only World Wendell Berry

Out of Africa Isak Dinesen

The Lover Margarite Duras

My Struggle Karl Ove Knausgard

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

The Alaskan Laundry by Brendan Jones

The Invention of Nature Andrea Wulf

King of Fish:

24 Hours in the Life of a Woman--Stefon Zweig

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

Barbarian Days:  A Surfing Life, William Finnegan

The Plague of Doves, Louise Erdrich

All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

Wolves in the Land of Salmon, David Moskovitz

My Struggle: Vol. 2 Karl Ove Knausgard

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Verne

Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut

Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse

Purity, Jonathan Franzen

Jerusalem: The Biography. Simon Sebag Montefiore

Deep River, Shusaku Endo

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette. Hampton Sides

Heart of Blood, Richard Nelson

Máscaras, Leonardo Padura Fuentes

Sea of Cortez, Steinbeck

Anti-Government

Hating the government is a God-given American right. Everybody, both the Left and the Right, hates the government.

There are two little things that would improve Americans' relationship with the government:

 1) Simplify the Tax Code
 and
 2) Make Healthcare sane.

But private enterprise, not the all-hated government, prevents us from improving our lives and our relationship with the government.

Accountants and health insurers and the lobbyists that work for them wipe their asses with our money and shit on pots made of gold bought with our money, all to prevent our lives from getting better.

These two stories are almost as sickening as our con-artist-in-chief's attempts to destroy our lands, water, and  air.

1) On how the healthcare industry robs us blind

2) On how one man's dream to simplify our tax code was squashed

It's not the money that bothers me when I pay taxes. It's the idea that after slaving for 60 hours a week I have to take a couple of Saturday mornings to prepare taxes. I don't even do them myself--it's too complicated. But I have to prepare my taxes to be prepared by someone else and it's a profound waste of time and a huge drain on productivity for a nation that prides itself on working itself to death. (The American work ethic, work hard but don't work smart, is worthy of another rumination.)

In the same vain as "it's not the money, it's the waste of time" that bothers me with taxes, it's the idea that an entire huge sector of our economy, which used to be dedicated to improving our health, is now dedicated to squeezing as many pennies as possible out of people. What's your health worth to you? Is it worth $356,299.43? If so, it's the people trained to suck Ben Franklins out of your wallet that are getting most of that $356,299.43 and not the people who actually improve your health.

Food For Thought.

Every Man Dies Alone

I found it surprisingly refreshing, uplifting, and particularly poignant in these times to read Hans Fallada's story of Nazi resistance Every Man Dies Alone, published in 1947.

Fallada's novel is based on the true story of a rather simple and quiet German couple, Otto and Ana Quangel, who resisted the Nazis with the very simple and harmless plot of writing subversive postcards that they would leave in public places.

The first postcard is simple enough: "The Fuhrer has murdered my son. PASS THIS CARD ON, SO THAT MANY PEOPLE READ IT!--DON'T GIVE TO THE WINTER RELIEF FUND!--WORK AS SLOWLY AS YOU CAN!--PUT SAND IN THE MACHINES!--EVERY STROKE OF WORK NOT DONE WILL SHORTEN THE WAR!"

The Quangels' son was killed in the war, fighting for Hitler. The "Winter Relief Fund" is Hitler's collections basket for raising money for "the cause." The Quangels try to spread a simple, yet poignant message that won't be seen by many, because anybody who finds a postcard like this in Nazi Germany is going to be terrified for their lives just to hold it.

Otto and Anna, work together to support their little plot, encouraging each other. And it becomes Otto's little mission on his day off work. It's basically what keeps them going. Sunday afternoons, he writes and Ana thinks of new places to drop the cards.

Neither of the Quangels "doubted for one moment that their cards were being passed from hand to hand in factories and offices, that Berlin was beginning to hum with talk about these oppositional spirits." "We will never regret anything. We will stand by what we've done, no matter how they torture us."

In their world, the Germany of the late 30s and early 40s, we see a landscape populated with networks of spies, who are really just neighbors blackmailing neighbors. Children playing in the street, ratting on adults in exchange for a mark or two.

After several years of foiling detectives, the Quangels are nabbed. Otto is caught in the act and eventually confesses. The Inspector notes, "And you fully understand what lies in store for you? A long jail sentence, or possibly death?" And Otto responds, "I know what I've done. And I hope you know what you're doing, too, Inspector!" "Oh, ad what's that, then?" the Inspector replies. "You're working in the employ of a murderer, delivering ever new victims to him. You do it for money; perhaps you don't even believe in the man. No, I'm certain you don't believe in him."

It's truly Otto's most heroic moment. And a triumph for the little person who resists.

Realizing that he has wasted his life, the Inspector blows his brains out in the next scene.

On death row, Quangel befriends his cellmate, a doctor who teaches him chess. The doctor also teaches him Beethoven--"it made him feel strong and brave enough to endure any fate", Mozart--"baffingly lighthearted and cheerful, which he had never been in his life" and Bach--he "would feel a pain in his chest and it would be as though he was a little boy again sitting in church with his mother, with something grand." 

On death row, the doctor and Otto can agree: At least they opposed evil: "You and I and the many locked up here, and many more in other places of detention, and tens of thousands in concentration camps--they're all resisting, today, tomorrow..."

But what good is resisting, Otto asks. The good doctor responds: "Well, it will have helped us to feel that we behaved decently till the end. And much more, it will have helped people everywhere, who will be saved for the righteous few among them, as it says in the Bible. Of course, it would have been a hundred times better if we'd had someone who could have told us. Such and such is what you have to do; our plan is this and this. But if there had been such a man in Germany, then Hitler would never come to power in 1933. As it was, we all acted alone, we were caught alone, and every one of us will have to die alone. But that doesn't mean that we are alone, or that our deaths will be in vain. Nothing in this world is done in vain, and since we are fighting for justice against brutality, we are bound to prevail in the end."

Then we find the Quangels in court and the description of the People's Court is priceless: "The People's Court in Berlin, which had nothing to do with the people and to which the people were not admitted even as silent spectators, for most of its sessions were held behind closed doors--this People's Court was an instance of a perfect system: before any accused person even set foot in the courtroom, that person was for all intents and purposes already condemned, and there was no indication that he or she had anything to hope for in there [...] The public gallery was only one-quarter full: a few Party uniforms, a few lawyers who for inscrutable reasons had chosen to attend these proceedings, and the rest law students, who wanted to learn how justice deals with people whose one crime was to love their country more than the judges did." 

Then there's the lawyer questioning Quangel: "And don't you regret it? Aren't you sorry to lose your life over a stupid stunt like that?"

"At least I stayed decent," Quangel replies. 

"You didn't need the postcards for that," the lawyer needles.

"That would have been a kind of tacit agreement. What was your price for turning into such a fine gentleman, with creased trousers and polished fingernails and deceitful concluding speeches? What did you have to pay?" The lawyer said nothing. Quangel continues, "And you will continue to pay more and more, and maybe one day, like me, you will pay with your life, but you will have done it for your indecency!" 

Another truly heroic moment for Otto. 


Just as it is for the Quangels, this time for Americans can be our finest moment as American citizens.  To remain decent. There is a lot to renounce and resist. And it's wonderful to see a factory foreman and his wife resist in a very quiet and simple way, no matter if it is effective or not. 

Currently, we're living under a regime that was put in place by the Russians purely to undermine our democracy, to destroy us, and every value that we hold dear. This plot has been exposed and documented, yet we have a Congress that has made a Faustian bargain with someone they think they can control, and they will do little to expose the plot because, one would assume, Congress is either directly or indirectly involved. It's a sad state of affairs and one with enough power can just hurl the epithet "fake news" at any piece of information that they disagree with. 

Check, check, and check.

As an American, I'm an optimist. The optimist in me believes that the moral arc of history bends toward justice. We've made some small incremental changes over the past 241 years of our very brief social experiment. We made many huge (for me, mostly positive for the most part) changes during the 8 years we had Obama as a President. They were a shock to the system, no doubt. Certainly, Obama had many failures, but I think we can agree that the man led us with dignity and grace.

Admittedly I'm a fiscal conservative. I wanted the fascist loofah-faced shit gibbon to lose the election not because I don't like conservatism. But because I'd like to see Republicans lean toward a more a sane, fiscal conservative in office. I'm a firm believer in market solutions and limited government, but sadly the GOP has alienated several generations of voters and they chose not only the opposite but  a potential despot whose damage in the first weeks of his regime will take decades to recover from. 

Sometimes it's good to look outside of domestic journalism--there's just too much hysteria from both sides when you're too close to the subject. Across the pond, The Economist rightly identifies the problem with our current president and a continuing weakness in our system of checks and balances: Because of increasing power given the office of the executive, the office of president has gone “from an 18th-century notable to a 19th-century party magnate to a 20th-century tribune to a 21st-century demagogue.” W and Obama have certainly pushed the limits of what a president does, to far extremes, too. The difference with our sexual predator in chief is that "both former presidents honoured the constitutional system; when their edicts were checked, they retreated. That is not an attitude Mr Trump’s rhetoric suggests he shares." In fact, he's done just the opposite: he's cajoled, insulted, and bullied the courts or anybody that points out his lies and blatant distortions of truth.


The media sells hysteria. It's been shown repeatedly that watching TV increases the perception that other places, particularly cities, are far more dangerous than they are.

The media likes events and circuses and bowl games, because they have a beginning and an ending, and because they can be programmed and promoted. They invite us into the situation room, alarm us with breaking news and then effortlessly move onto the next crisis. 

It's truly a race to the bottom and we, the customer, are getting stiffed.

We're somewhere in which reality is somewhere between hysteria and a reasonable time to sound the alarms. I would say we're really in the latter, but for the sake of argument let's open up the possibility that it's just hysteria. This imagining of a Trump autocracy fairly sums up a very plausible future. And it's concerning. 

We also have a case of the missing news, too. Remember how we learned that in fact Russian operatives interfered with our democracy and influenced the election? And how the Trump campaign allegedly had a series of "improper contacts" with Russia during the campaign. Where did this news go? Why are we not beating the drum? Where did the media hide to not hound this very concerning piece of news that should bother Americans of every political stripe?

We just learned that a lot of the dossier has been corroborated by operatives across Europe, but Trump's army of trolls are busy burying this with ever increasing bizarre orders and edicts. Whether or not there were improper contacts with Russia or not, it should bother all American citizens of all political stripes that indeed Russia did somehow tamper with our election, an act of covert warfare. To me, if they can prove "improper contact," which of course they can't and won't because Senate and Congress are controlled by the party of spineless twerps who have made a Faustian bargain with the con man-in-chief, but if they could, that's treason, and we should hang the fucker. Too many "ifs" in my long run-on sentence, I recognize.  Nevertheless, the lack of uproar over this not-so-tiny detail gives Putin a blank check to interfere with our country however he sees fit. And here we lost. All of us. 

I'm not trying to equate #Twitler to the real Hitler. Our reality TV host-in-chief is just a clown who doesn't even appear to want the job. Friends of his have recognized that he ran for president just to increase his ratings for "The Apprentice." It's been insinuated by many that he was rooting for Hillary anyways. And equating any of our leaders to Hitler or the Nazis is an offense to those millions who perished by the hands of those killers. People who do so need a timeout. But he's checking off a number, if not all, of the early warning signs of fascism, as spotted in the holocaust museum in DC.