Sunday, July 27, 2008

Mutton Bursting


I found my new life goal:

Mutton Bursting Champion of America!

In my much needed research on the genetics and history of the subject of the previous post i discovered this incredible sport, once again highlighting the ingenuity of the American people and their love for useless sports for the Children to do. Strap on your child size padded vest and a helmet and join if you dear, in as one rodeo announcer claimed "The only legal form of child ab use" and off we go for a adventure in Bursting the Mutton.
"Mutton busting is an event held at rodeos similar to bull riding or bronc riding. In the event, a sheep will be caught and held still while a child is placed on top in a riding position. Once the child is seated atop the sheep, the people holding the sheep let go and the sheep then starts to run in an attempt to get the child off. Often small prizes or ribbons are given out to the child who can stay on the longest."
Just in! all children of America are being pulled out of Elementary schools to train for the Mutton Bursting. Proven tests have shown mutton bursting leads kids to live stronger lives and preform better in school after being continually humbled by sheep trying to murder them.


(side note there are a lot more clips like this, also to note the amount of people in the crowd)
I wonder if i can bet on these Mutton Busters?
Well i bought my vest and helmet, and off to try my skills. Lets hope i dont crush the sheep on the way out of the gate.

To catch a sheep.


Its an easy concept to imagine. Catching and isolating the one sheep (what we thought was the dumbest) is an easy and painless process.

Well you have four sheep and a majestic ram, who all are as un-trained as the for-Ovis aries of the mountains of wherever they descended from. The only way to collect this small flock of ours is with feed and a roll of twine. Hoping for them to come rushing into the small isolated paddock within their far to expensive pasture. This pasture re worked and wire restrung as many times as the sheep have found a way out. Rushing into what they see as free-er fields ahead, Sadly not the case, for our four legged friends will be on the plate by the time the sun sinks into the sea.

They have a simple life in this field, run from humans, eat food. Wonder into the paddock for grain every late afternoon making sure all humans are invisible. They seem to be happy, with their obnoxious noises and quest for food and fear. Catching them using the twine, grain and quick steps. Tieing the string around the small gate to the sheep lean-to. (Which is what it should be-- However my mothers overly love to share her creature comforts of her life with the sheep, ends with a large sheep mansion, with a catchment system to collect the water from the roof for these sheep).

Tieing the string i disappear, letting the sheep get use to the small white line far above their small heads. Shortly after strolling in with a galvanized grain bucket, as the sun is dropping low with its golden paintbrush. Acting like i had not just appeared with sting (of course not!) Swishing the grain around to make it painfully obvious grain in my had signaling the sheep that their brains can stop working, and that their stomachs should now motivate them. Rushing the grain into the bucket I walk out, hoping for the flock to rush over into the paddock. Hiding behind a dirt bluff, or more a sheep blind, sting in had i wait as they cautiously walk into their lawn in front of their lean-to. Only to find that the gate is attached by chain to the fence, or the dumb sheep stayed outside of the year around their home, or they saw me behind the sheep blind and the multitude of the five attempts leading me empty handed with what was requested, the white sheep.

This continues for another twenty minutes coaxing the sheep with a total of five buckets trying all sorts of ways of sheep ulterior motivation. Hoping the continue the thought process around food instead of fear. Attempt after attempt all hope behind the sheep blind is dwindling. I’ve also discovered what seem to be harmless shrubs around me are actually all covered in strange thorns, that have made happy homes into my epidermis. Slowly I wait for the sheep to see past the strange moving black hair, hope to see it as a new plant maybe…. Well this doesn’t work either.

The last hope as the peanut gallery appears on all sides watching me the soon to be bonafide sheep catcher at work. Running the twine up as far it goes, the fifth bucket of grain in place, I hid crouched waiting for the white sheep( the dumbest) to come within sights of the lean-to. The stickler of a sheep slowly makes its way to the grain as I run as fast as I can slipping and sliding to the string slamming the gate shut. The professionals soon took to isolating the white sheep, with ropes hogtieing it in the back of the truck, Eddie got the glory today, as for Me I’m covered in thorns and thinking of how many beers could have rather been bought instead of the idea that we need sheep. I’m not destined for the shepherd position at Pu’uo kumau ranch. Cows are much easier.

With the sheep set in a smaller paddock all taking refuge as one single entity it was onto the pros to extract the only all white sheep and relocate to a new home, hoping in the end that her stupidity, which is really smarts for she is most fearfully of people, an overall good thing. Leading to a smarter and friendlier flock.

Something I doubt completely.

In other news The tickets have been bought. On September 18th( my 21st birthday) 2008 @ 4pm EST, I’m leaving for Istanbul.

Its official my dream is actually coming to fruition. Hopefully without the need to Sheppard sheep any longer.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008




I'm existing on an Atoll. Well i guess it is a little bigger then an atoll. However I'm on an island, big in theory small in actuality. I sometimes expect to find a Gilligan here, bumbling and desolate with his only company those fellow stranded. In my mind it seems the isolation could not have actually spawned a functioning economy with utilities. Its so isolated. The function island has to be all dream, no one actually believes this is a good idea, do they? oh wait Zac yes they do, and some of them are related very closely to you.

I'm growing out of this doubt, of whether or not i agree with the idea of this isolation. I do like the reassurance that i can drive away from any one spot to another, always able to flee. Not much to flee to here.

Take away these doubts and i remember how beautiful it is here. The picture above taken a couple months ago as the sun was setting, painting and illuminating the terraced fields that once existed. The golden paintbrush turning the world around me into a magical hue of green. I chase after that color of green in my mind. Trying to find or replicate it, a color that reminds me of home, or my nuvo-home.

Its beauty here really does make it hard to question the if ands or buts of being 3,000 miles away from anything tangible.

I've been listing too on repeat Tom Waits, "all the world is green."

Driving up and down the topography at this magic hour, the rain has socked us in. This golden paintbrush still appears, sweeping across everything glistening and moving within the constant breeze. This song it plays in a similar light in my mind, as the sun sets in a sea of color, this illuminated grass continues in till dusk sets in and it fades out to the white light of the moon.

Here is youtube clip of Tom Waits playing the song, in a sea of blue lights on David Lettermen. (I'm trying to figure it out so i don't have to use Youtube, but I'm very internet illiterate.)

Sunday, July 20, 2008


I wanted to post in the same as the jazz post below about another musical love of mine. Someone i cant get enough of both in video (which there is few good videos of) and auditory.

Otis Redding. The Glorious man that he was, similar i think also to a Bison in majesty. His tone, though gravely was a change, a difference to the soft and even tones of the Motown and more pop oriented moments of soul. His voice with its incredible character. The arrangements by him and the Stax etc. Adding more spice then the world knew what to do with.

Its growing is an Otis song from 1966 about the spreading capacities of love. well my love for Otis grows as well, everyday it grow a little bit stronger. You-tube is a great resources of his television appearances from his short Carrier and one of the most hilarious ones is this from a show from england called Ready Steady Go, here is a clip of Otis singing Satisfaction, My Girl (my favorite rendition) and Respect.
So when i'm not getting my official ATV license on a sleepy Sunday mid afternoon, i sit and a listen to all sorts of music.

I think it is very obvious how much music is a force within my life. That can not be underscored enough. One of the great inventions (or worse) to my generation is you tube. Which as a matter of fact i think is full of the most obnoxious and least interesting garbage. Kids who suck at guitar and everything else in the world trying to mimic or claim to be better then the greats. For a time there as well it seemed that these were the only videos i could find, hoping to tap into the global Internet to see some videos of the true greats.

It is finally shifting for Yesterday during my hours long researching of new music i discovered Ahmad Jamal playing "Darn that Dream" over youtube:



I feel in love with the light handedness of this mid fifties trio, in a room surrounded by people admiring this young and spry piano player. I went on to listen to more of his records and proved to be a nice break to some of the more mental and grad piano jazz record. Like "Mingus Plays Piano" and "Monk Alone" two of my most favorite records.

This year i really fell into a love for the minimal jazz piano, with little acompianment the intracacy of the keys has always been one of my favorite insturments to listen and watch being played. Ahmed is no exception and he is still living! Unlike Mingus who really played bass and hated the world. Or, Thelonious whos carreer was damponed by the likes of the hot air blowers such as Davis and Coltrane.

Ahmed still plays and with the light hearted ways of the bop era coming through. A more free feeling then the later sixties and then the experimentation that erupted. Much like this song the young Ahmed Jamal twenty years before was an inspiring force for Davis and Coltrane. Pushing to more creative composition within his release from the early fifties to think he aided in the begining of the reformation of jazz leading pushing the gnere forward to about ten years later. Miles playing Wayne shorters "Footprints" with his quintet in 1968:



See Youtube is getting better, now if only there was a better filter to find things that are worth it.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Above in the header is a Bison.

The American Bison is the best Bovine. A symbol of the American west of freedom and of majesty, like the Bald Eagle of the ground. The bison has slowly decided that i should adopt it as a symbol of my own, setting it center stage into that chest of spirit animals i keep under my bed.

I often feel like a bison, slow and subtle, a little chunky around the edges. Driving today on the ranch on the iridescent four wheeler watching the cows. They treat me i think how they would treat a bison, utter panic. They follow this utter panic with a calm 'oh it is far too much energy to run' as they sit back down in the parched yellow grass.

Cows have a similar look to Bison, the great look of inquisitiveness, seen across the board in bovines:
They are a related species. I just hope that one day when i can raise bison, the friendlier more majestic Bovine i can commune like i do with the cows.

I'm still trying to figure out Cows, seeing that there are no Bison here in Hawaii for me to take care of. I have begun a slow but blossoming love for the other large mammals.

I have really been spending a lot of times with Horses. Horses possibly on of the few other species that uses a fist like pound to greet each other, except it is with their noses. It all goes back to sentiment though. Horses i know are saying in their snuffing and pounding noses,

"Dude whats up!"

Thats right i think Horses say dude. It is sad that while is sit here on the Ranch in Hawaii i cant get to really test out my skills with Bison ranching but possibly it will come, i can settle with cows right now, they are pretty cool too, just less Majestic.


(Bison and Bull together in the tropics.)
I read the New York times almost ever day.

I always pay most attention to their national news, especially those simple and stright forward slide shows The times new decision to dive into online multimedia is an intresting approuch at gaining readers, or more retaining them.

Today they launched:

"The Debt Trap"


A new look at Americans Debt, how it got there what has caused it and what can be done to solve it. Using all kinds of bells and whistles, video,audio, graphics and a very wel written beginning article. In my Initial reading i really was fond of their way of addressing an issue i have heard around the water coolers of finance.

The seeming low savings rates amount Americans, why is that? Debt? lack of simple education of savings.

According to a Washington post archive from 2004 the Average American family has $3,800 in the bank, that is according to the Federal Reserve. Who knows if those numbers have changed but i think the problem relates to the seemingly inept ability of the schools (public and private) to teach what is most important to my generation; the idea of the easiest ways to have savings ready for the most dire of times.

I don't have a solution in this short tirade but i think the first is realizing the place that we have fallen into as a country. An electro-shock to get the wheels on the rails to get out of the mess that has begun.
The Beginning of something, I'll have to see if it lasts.

Not quite sure what, but i believe it is time to start up the blogging business again.

From wherever, when ever.